Amazon's second Prime Day sale – the Prime Early Access Sale – is now live and there are deals aplenty! But only for a few hours, the Prime Early Access Sale is ending soon and you won't want to miss out on the offers.
The Prime Early Access Sale, which acts as both a second Prime Day as well as an early Black Friday sale (opens in new tab), gives shoppers another chance to score incredible deals on Amazon devices, home goods and essentials, electronics, and more, all before the holiday rush kicks in during November's Black Friday sales.
Shop all early Black Friday deals at the Prime Early Access Sale here (opens in new tab)
The Prime Early Access Sale kicks off on October 11 and runs through October 12. The sale offers some exceptional deals, as well as some perks like 4 months of Amazon Music free (opens in new tab) as well as deals on GrubHub, Prime Video, and more.
Remember, this is a Prime sale so if you aren't a member of Amazon Prime yet, you'll need to sign up to see all of the offers that are available. You can sign up for a 30-Day free Prime membership (opens in new tab) trial if you aren't part of Prime yet, and even if you don't keep the membership you'll still get access to the Prime Early Access Sale deals when they show up.
We'll be covering the best early Black Friday deals and Prime Early Access Sale all throughout October and November this year so check back often for savings throughout the holiday season!
Early Black Friday Deals at Amazon
While Amazon's early Black Friday sale – the Prime Early Access Sale – is still a ways away, each day they drop some must-see deals on clothing, electronics, toys, games, and much more. Below you'll find some of the best early Black Friday deals available today!
- Early Savings: shop all early Black Friday deals and Prime Early Access Sale offers (opens in new tab)
- Amazon Music Unlimited: 4 months free for new subscribers (opens in new tab)
- Bluetooth Speakers: up to 26% off select Sony X-Series portable speakers (opens in new tab)
- Echo Home Theater Bundle: save 25% of the Echo Studio with Echo Sub (opens in new tab)
- Message Guns: up to $140 off select Fusion Black Pro massage guns (opens in new tab)
- GrubHub: free with Prime memberships (opens in new tab)
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(opens in new tab)Amazon Prime Day: Is there a second Prime Day?
Update: Amazon has confirmed that second Prime Day is happening. The Prime Early Access Sale, which is set to go live on October 11 and run through October 12, will act as an Amazon early Black Friday sale of sorts, offering a mix of deals and savings on home goods, electronics, and more.
Believe it or not, a second Prime Day may actually happen due to a myriad of reasons.
Aside from record inflation and price hikes across hundreds of items, this years Prime Day performed well but not as great as Amazon expected. You can check out the Numerator results below in our Results section, but simply put the buying habits of shoppers this year were surprising to say the least.
Overall purchase size was smaller than average by quite a bit, meaning people were spending less on big items and were looking more for necessities rather than luxuries.
That doesn't mean Amazon Prime Day didn't make a ton of money, it always does. But with what we saw earlier this year, it wouldn't be a far off guess thinking Amazon is planning a second one. Multiple sources have also stated (opens in new tab) that Amazon is planning a second event for the year, and while it may not be officially titled Prime Day 2, expect it to be similar overall.
We're hoping it could be an early Black Friday sale that encompasses Black Friday deal pricing and offers, giving non-members and members of Prime early access to some of Amazon's best Black Friday deals ahead of schedule.
Amazon Prime Day Recap: The Results
According to Numerator's Prime Day 2022 tracking, smart tech rained supreme this year. However, there is some surprising data that shows that buying habits this year were quite different than what was expected.
Average cart sizes were smaller and average dollar amount per purchase was much lower than expected, however Amazon blew it out of the water in terms of overall performance. Even in times like this, it seems people still need their Amazon tech fix!
The most popular item was Amazon's own Fire TV Stick (opens in new tab), which dropped down to it's lowest price of the year and matched last year's Prime Day price.
Along with that, some interested tidbits of data point to people buying more essential products as opposed to luxury items:
- 29% of shoppers purchased household essentials this Prime Day, just inching out over health and beauty supplies (also considered essential) at 28%
- The average purchase price was only $33.58, meaning people were sticking to tighter budgets during the savings event
- The primary purchasing audience of Prime Day 2022 was females ages 35 to 44
- Most buyers were high income, with an average income of over $80,000
- Suburbanites reigned this Prime Day, taking up the majority of purchases this year over rural and urban livers
- Of all the smart home devices purchased, a massive 68% of the were Amazon branded (meaning Amazon devices absolutely killed it)
- Inflation had a huge impact during Prime Day, causing 65% of purchase to spend less than they have in previous years
What is Amazon Prime Day?
Amazon Prime Day is the second largest sales day of the year (next to Black Friday), and is a two day sale that offers one of the largest selections of discounted products and deals all year. While Prime Day has become somewhat of a "Black Friday" type savings event, it's a sale that tends to focus more around Prime Day devices, smart tech and Amazon brands.
There are, however, supposed to be over 2 million individual products going on sale this Prime Day. So while the focus of what you'll see when browsing Prime Day deals is turned squarely on Amazon's line of products, just about everything you can think of gets a discount during the two day event.
Amazon Prime Day FAQ
Is Prime free on Prime Day?
If you have not had an Amazon Prime account before then, yes, you can get a free Prime trial for Prime Day (or for any other day). Amazon offers all customers a free 30-day trial of Prime, while students get a massively generous six-month free Prime trial. You can cancel at any time during the trial and you won't be charged a thing.
If you decide to pay for Prime once your trial ends, that'll cost you $119 a year. Student Prime accounts cost just $6.49 a month.
If you live in a household where someone else has a Prime account then you can form an Amazon Household and share some of their Prime benefits at no cost to yourself – including unlimited one-day delivery plus same-day delivery in eligible areas, and access to those all-important Prime Day deals. It also provided a 30-minute early access to Lightning Deals with Prime Early Access.
Here's how to get your free Prime account and how to set up an Amazon Household.
Is the Amazon Prime price going up this year?
It has recently been confirmed that an Amazon Prime price increase is indeed happening this year. While this comes as some unwanted news for many, the 17% price bump is the third increase since Prime's inception.
You can still lock in the current price ratings before the hike later this year, but you'll want to head over to the Amazon Prime sign up page (opens in new tab) today. You can also try it out for 30 days before you make the decision of keeping it, but if you're like us (and the millions of Prime members out there) you'll most likely keep it. The benefits of the service still outweigh the cost in our minds, and while we don't like seeing the price of something go up Amazon Prime is something that offers a plethora of benefits for the price.
The price increases are as follows:
- Yearly: $139 (was $119)
- Monthly: $14.99 (was $12.99)
In an earnings call last October Amazon said it had nothing to announce around Prime price increases. However, some analysts speculated that there could be an Amazon Prime price increase on the way. As reported by MarketWatch (opens in new tab), analysts at Jefferies reckoned a price hike was due this year, pointing out that Amazon increased the Prime membership price in March 2014 and May 2018. The same report adds that analysts at JPMorgan also believed that a price increase for Amazon services, including Prime, is coming.
"Increasing the fee again this year seems reasonable and would maintain the latest cadence of about four years," the report quotes the Jefferies analysts as saying, adding that both previous increases were by $20.
How to find the best Prime Day deals
Shopping Amazon Prime Day can be an exhausting and overwhelming experience if you aren't prepared for what's ahead. While Prime Day is some of the most fun deal hunters will have all year, it can easily go bad if you aren't sure what of to look for – or how to look for it. Here are some helpful suggestions to shopping Amazon Prime Day and tips on how to save the most money this year.
Don't just shop at Amazon: This may be a weird one to hear, considering this is Amazon Prime Day we're talking about, but hear us out. Since Prime Day has gotten so dang popular over the years, many retailers out there are trying to get in on the action by running their own Prime Day-like sales alongside Amazon. If you've got a favorite store you like to shop at, don't be afraid to shop there as well. You'll be surprised what kind of discounts you can find.
Trust your gut on reviews: Here's the thing with Amazon's review system, it's not very good at filtering out useless and unhelpful feedback. If you head to almost any major product released in the past year, you'll see one star reviews with one sentence clearly expressing dissatisfaction and nothing else. You may even find "fake reviews" to help deter you from a good product or even steer you towards buying a bad product. If it's something you truly want and it's on sale, reviews may help but at the end of the day it's your money!
Compare prices: This applies to everything. Clothing, electronics, you name it. If it's on sale during Prime Day, chances are every seller who has it is dropping their prices. What you may not know, however, is that it may be cheaper in some cases to check out alternative sellers. Don't be afraid to click that "see other buying options" button from time to time.
Are Prime Day deals worth it?
The question of "Are Prime Day deals worth it?" gets asked quite a lot around this time, and quite frankly there's a yes and a no answer to this one. Depending on what exactly you're hoping to buy, Prime Day could be the perfect chance to get the best discount while it may be more beneficial to wait until Father's Day sales, Labor Day sales or even Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales.
That said, Prime Day deals are definitely worth if when it comes to electronics, smart tech and of course Prime services. Most Prime services, including Prime Video (opens in new tab) and Amazon Music Unlimited (opens in new tab) get some pretty sweet offers for newcomers and Prime members alike.
That mid-July date prediction is echoed by a report at Digital Commerce 360 (opens in new tab) which cites an announcement from Amazon (opens in new tab) to sellers who use the Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) service. The post is titled "Plan your shipment early for Prime Day 2022" and it says that sellers have until 29 April to submit their deals for Prime Day consideration. It also says: "Plan and send your shipment so that it arrives at fulfillment centers before June 20."
The Digital Commerce 360 report quotes Fahim Naim from ecommerce consulting agency Advantage Unified Commerce as saying: "Barring any major any setback, and based on the data and the timing of the information on Seller Central, all the stars are lining up for July 11 or 18." The same report says it is "extremely unlikely" Amazon Prime Day will be on the first Monday in July which is Independence Day in the US. Naim gives 11 July a 70% probability rating, and 18 July a 30% probability.
Are Amazon Prime Day deals real?
This is a question that gets asked a lot and not just on Amazon Prime Day, but Black Friday, too. And there are two answers – but both center on what you consider a 'deal' to be.
The first is that, yes, you do get products discounted on Amazon Prime Day, and sometimes they are discounted down to prices that they have never been at before. That in many people's eyes is a deal.
The thing is, though, as proved by numerous studies such as this 2022 report by Semrush (opens in new tab), a lot of deals offered up during sales events such as Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday don't actually offer that good a discount.
The practice of artificially spiking prices on items in the weeks or months running up to a sales event, only so that they can then offer what looks like a large discount percentage, is rife within the industry, and what goes from being a jaw-dropping deal ends up, in reality, being just a small to modest price cut.
Of course, if you've wanted that product then you've still got it, and got it for marginally cheaper than it has been available for before, so in that sense, you could say you've still got a deal.
Another thing to factor into if a product is a 'deal' or not is where the product is in its lifecycle. If a 4K OLED TV is $400 off and it's been on the market for a year, then that's more just end-of-life price degradation in advance of its replacement coming out. Of course, the counterargument to that is that just because a product has been on the market for a while doesn't make it bad, or buying it at that point a bad deal.
Lastly, it is important to note the other elephant in the room – Black Friday. According to that Semrush report linked to above the biggest discounts of the year come during the Black Friday sales period, which coincides with the months of November and December.
As such, while Amazon Prime Day 2022 will be a great opportunity to buy discounted products, there's no guarantee those products won't be cheaper still during the Black Friday sales this year.
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