How to Save During Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days Sale

Amazon Prime Big Deal Days (October 10-11, 2023)

A Little History

Are you excited for Amazon Prime Big Deal Days? This now-massive sale event kicked off on July 15, 2015, as a 24-hour sale. Each subsequent year through 2019, Prime Day occurred in the second week of July and the sale grew from 24 to 48 hours. 

Then the Pandemic hit in 2020, flipping retail on its head in myriad ways.  Prime Day 2020 was postponed until October – again as a 48-hour sale – serving as an unofficial start to the holiday shopping season that year.

In 2021, experts and consumers wondered when Prime Day was going to be. Would it return to July? Or perhaps there would be two Prime Days, one in July and one in October? But Amazon surprised us all by holding Prime Day 2021 over 48 hours beginning June 21.

Sales figures were only a modest jump over 2020, so I’m not surprised that Amazon returned to July in 2022, which turned out to be a good move. According to the Amazon team, it was the “biggest Prime Day event in Amazon’s history.” They went on to report that “Prime members purchased more than 300 million items worldwide and ‘saved over $1.7 billion.”

Amazon then surprised us all with a second Prime Day, the Amazon Prime Early Access Sale, which was held October 11-12, 2022. According to several online sources, this was the first “Prime Day” that wasn’t greater than all of those before it. In fact, it sounds like sales were down about 15% from July’s Prime Day.

Enter 2023. Amazon held their Prime Day sales July 11-12, where “Prime members purchased more than 375 million items worldwide and saved more than $2.5 billion on millions of deals across the Amazon store, helping make it the biggest Prime Day event ever,” according to Amazon. Sales are rumored to have reach 12.9 billion globally, up 6.7% year over year.   

It was recently announced that Amazon will be hosting a second 2-day sale in October, on the 10th and 11th.

Here are the Best Prime Big Deal Days Shopping Tips:

Amazon Prime Membership is Required

Prime Big Deal Days sales are for Amazon Prime members only. If you are not a member, now is a great time to join so you can take advantage of all the discounts and benefits, like access to Amazon Video, Amazon Music, one free Kindle book per month, exclusive Amazon discounts, a free Grubhub+ membership, and lots more.

After a 30-day free Amazon Prime trial, Prime membership is $139 per year (or $14.99 per month) and includes unlimited two-day – or in some cases next-day or same-day shipping – all year long. If you don’t intend to continue after the trial, remember to cancel within that 30-day window. And if you’ve done a free trial before, don’t worry – you’re eligible for a free Amazon Prime trial every 12 months!

Amazon Prime Membership Discounts

Students with a valid ID can get a 6-month free trial, and then it’s $7.49 per month, plus a slew of perks from other providers, like access to the Calm app and Grubhub.

If you are on public assistance and can provide an EBT or Medicaid card, you can get Amazon Prime for $6.99 per month.

What will be on sale?

Every Prime Day, hundreds of thousands of items will be on sale. The deepest discounts are typically on brands Amazon owns, like Kindle, Ring, Fire, etc. We also see discounts on small tech, like headphones and smartwatches, as well as small home appliances, like air fryers and robotic vacuums. Because of the timing of this sale, and that it will serve as the unofficial kickoff of the holiday shopping season, I would also anticipate that there will be some holiday-themed items in the mix, like home decor and giftable items.  

Special Offers

Amazon often offers bonuses on top of their Prime Day discounts. A previous offer was that you could receive a $10 Amazon credit when you purchased a $40 Prime Day gift card. This gift card could be gifted to someone else, or be applied towards your Prime membership or future purchases. Look for offers like this for Big Deal Days.

Select brands will have their own special deals on Amazon. For example, on Prime Day in July, if you ordered $75+ of P&G products, you received a $20 Prime Day Credit. Look for deals like this from your favorite brands.

Sign up for Amazon’s Credit Card 

If you are a regular Amazon shopper, consider applying for the Amazon Prime Visa. Periodically, Amazon offers an instant bonus upon approval, like a $100 Amazon gift card, which is what I received when I signed up for the card a few years ago.

This card has no annual fee and allows you to earn 5% back on your Amazon and Whole Foods purchases, and 1-2% back on other purchases. These earnings can be applied to future Amazon purchases.

During Prime Day, you can earn extra bonuses on select eligible items just by using your Prime Rewards Visa. This often applies to Whole Foods purchases as well. 

Throughout the year, you can earn up to 10% back on select items through Prime Bonus offers. There are also benefits for foreign travel, like no transaction fees and travel insurance. Like many store cards, this card has a fairly high APR, so buy only what you can pay off in full each month.

Use Amazon Cash

If you don’t have a debit or credit card, you can still shop with Amazon by using Amazon Cash. You do this by adding a Gift Card Balance of $5-$500 to your Amazon Account at select store locations (click here for locations). 

Deal Spotting

Use the Amazon app or the Amazon Assistant browser extension to search for Deals & Savings, and add items of interest to your Lists. Under Deals & Savings, there are a number of categories that you can search, like “Today’s Deals.” From here, you can filter by discount percentage, price, number of stars, and more.

Leading up to Prime Day, you can usually sign up to receive deal notifications for your recently viewed items by visiting the Prime Day page on the Amazon app. Once the sale begins, you will receive alerts for any deals that are available. I have not had a ton of luck with this feature, but it could be because the items I’ve selected.

Some items will even be on sale before Prime Big Deal Days, so you could click on “Today’s Deals” a few days before the official sale begins – and then during the sale as well – to see what’s on sale. Most of the deals will be Prime Day exclusives, which will be available to shoppers while supplies last. “Deals of the Day” will only be available for 24 hours, and then there will be “Lightning Deals”, which like lightning, come and go very quickly.

Another smart thing to do is to add things that you want to your cart before Prime Day and click “Save for Later.” That way, on Prime Day, you can easily view all those items and see if they are on sale. I’ve had very good luck doing this!

If you’re ok with open box items or those with slight damages to the outer packaging, check out Amazon Warehouse for big discounts on Prime Big Deals Days or anytime throughout the year.

Ask Alexa

If you have any of Amazon’s devices, like the Echo Dot or Echo Show, ask Alexa what the deals are. For up to 24-hours before a deal goes live, Alexa can also notify you of deals on items you’ve added to your Wish List, your cart or your Save for Later list. Once you’ve ordered, you can also track your packages using Alexa.

Set Alerts

Other retailers may offer competitive deals on Prime Day.  To ensure you get the lowest price, set deal alerts for specific items on Slickdeals. You’ll receive a notification when those items go on sale on Amazon or elsewhere.  Also, bookmark the Slickdeals Prime Day page for all the best deals in one place.

Compare Prices

Don’t check out on Amazon before installing the Paypal Honey browser extension. Once installed, Honey will provide historical pricing so you can determine whether to buy now or later. You can also elect to add items to the PayPal Honey Droplist, so you’ll be notified when the item goes on sale.

Save at Checkout

Another fab browser extension is CouponCabin’s Sidekick. Once installed, it will pop up and offer to run coupons for you at checkout. The extension will cycle through several coupon codes to see if any are valid. If there is a valid code, you’ll automatically see that coupon applied to your purchase!

See What’s New

To commemorate Prime Day, Amazon usually launches a whole host of items, many with introductory pricing. Stay tuned!

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