This story is part of Amazon Prime Day, CNET’s guide to everything you need to know and how to find the best deals.
Just when you thought major sales events from Amazon were in a holding pattern until Black Friday, rumors are looking like things will be shaking up in October. Amazon hosted its annual Prime Day event in July this year, and for as long as we’ve had Prime Day happening it’s taken place just once a year. With some of the economic conditions that many are facing right now an extra chance to save money on holiday purchases would be welcomed for most of us, but that doesn’t come without some considerations.
We all love discounts and most of us are getting ready to start holiday shopping, so why wouldn’t Amazon have a big sales event to capture that interest, right? With shipping delays, product availability concerns for select items still lingering and the fact that not all of us have as much extra cash laying around these days could mean that people would pick one event over the other. Is another Prime Day style sales event before Black Friday a good idea? Let’s see.
We’ve been trained to wait for Black Friday deals
Black Friday has always been the time to buy holiday gifts at the end of the year. Over the past few years it’s grown from a single day of savings to one that took over the whole weekend, blending right into Cyber Monday, and most recently it’s become almost a full month of discounts and deals. We’ve grown to be used to this. Many of us expect that November will be the time for discounts, and the closer you can wait until the end of the month the better it will be for their wallet.
Amazon is going to have to convince us that if they buy something during its rumored October event that they won’t be overpaying ahead of Black Friday. Back in 2020, Amazon had to move Prime Day from July to October due to COVID. While that event was successful, that doesn’t mean that it will experience the same results this year, as the economic climate is different now due to inflation. People are still looking for ways to save on necessities like food and gas, which is leaving less money for the extra purchases people like to make around holiday season.
Many of us (myself included) who budget for holiday shopping are less likely to have cash to spend in October, since that could be as much as eight weeks earlier than we were originally intending to start on holiday shopping with Black Friday deals. None of this is to say that Amazon won’t have two successful days in October if it hosts an event, but it may not top the one that took place in July or even Prime Days of recent years.
Ease our minds with a pricing guarantee
Since pricing will be a big concern, and many of us are likely to be worried that we’re buying too early, Amazon should offer some type of “Black Friday pricing guarantee.” Amazon is one of the only retailers that does not offer any price matches or adjustments after the purchase. Basically, once you buy something, it doesn’t matter if the next day it’s cheaper, Amazon won’t refund the difference unless you return your original order and then buy it again at the lower price. That’s less than ideal, and not something holiday shoppers will want to be dealing with.
While Amazon won’t be able to predict what each of its competitors will do for pricing and discounts during the holiday season, the company is in control of its own pricing. If Amazon wants us to shop earlier this year, the company has to make sure people are comfortable with the prices and feel good about buying, without the worry of it going on sale at a cheaper price a few weeks later.
Will Best Buy, Target, Walmart and others have sales as well?
If Amazon does indeed announce a second Prime Day event for this year, I’d expect that most of its competitors will gear up for an early start to the holiday shopping season. Between product availability, shipping delays and increased costs of just about everything, it’s in the best interest of every retailer to offer consumers as much time as possible to get their holiday shopping done.
Amazon hasn’t officially acknowledged the second Prime Day event, but based on what we’ve heard rumored so far, it looks like October is the time frame and we’d guess it comes in the middle of the month, because that’s what Amazon has always done with Prime Day events. This would mean it’s potentially six to seven weeks from the second Prime Day event until Black Friday, which would be a long stretch of deals and promotions for retailers to capitalize on.
For Amazon, it’s time to go big or go home
In order for a second Prime Day event to really take off and be worth it for many shoppers, Amazon will have to go big with the deals. From what we saw during the first event earlier this year, there were a few good deals to be had, but most of the discounts felt lackluster and very similar to price drops we see any other time during the year. While we generally see some pretty great prices on Amazon’s own devices, it’s hard to get as excited about that now.
Amazon needs bigger discounts on more products, especially the popular ones. On products where discounts are not as likely to happen, Amazon can step up by bundling gift cards or extra freebies. One of the biggest deals from Prime Day in July was the $99 50-inch Fire TV, which landed as a Lightning Deal that was available for less than two minutes. Amazon needs more of these, with better product availability to get people excited. We need more deals to go live throughout the event, and Day 2 needs to be more than just recycling what’s left from Day 1 with the same discounts.
Amazon has hosted successful Prime Day events for years, but recently it feels like things are getting a little stale — and having a second event that largely reproduces what happened earlier in the year probably won’t be enough to get people excited. Can Amazon do enough to kick off the holiday shopping season for everyone in October, or will people just continue to wait? We’ll see soon enough.
