Prime Day is one of the biggest sales events of the year with Amazon throwing everything into its efforts each year. If you’ve been waiting to buy big ticket items or even simply a little treat for yourself, Prime Day is the sales event to watch for. However, before you dive right in, it’s important to know a bunch of things about it. We’re here to help on that front with a look at what Prime Day involves, when it occurs, what to expect from it, and even what other retailers get up to around the same time. Excited? You should be! Here’s all you need to know ahead of Prime Day deals emerging.
What is Prime Day?
Prime Day is Amazon’s annual sales event. Originally launched on 15th July 2015 to celebrate Amazon’s 20th birthday, the event has continued to grow by the year.
Crucially, Amazon Prime Day now covers two days of the year with that date typically falling around the early part of July. In 2023, the first day of Prime Day was Amazon’s biggest selling day in history with the two-day event bringing in over $12.90 billion in sales.
The event originally was made available to members in nine countries: the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada, and Austria. It’s now a key part of Amazon in over 20 countries.
The idea behind it is to boost sales during the summer period which is when people generally spend less. It’s a marked contrast compared to Black Friday and Cyber Monday which land in late November just in time for the holiday season.
Prime Day has many discounts on physical products but it also extends to other Amazon products like Prime Music, Amazon Fresh grocery delivery, Prime Video, Audible, Kindle Unlimited, and other Amazon-owned properties.
When is Prime Day 2024?
Amazon hasn’t announced when Prime Day 2024 will be. However, we can roughly figure out likely dates for it. Usually, Amazon Prime Day occurs in early to mid July. The only time that changed was during the 2020 pandemic. Amazon moved the sales event to 13-14 October 2020. The following year, Prime Day 2021 occurred in June 2021 but since then, it’s returned to its traditional early July slot.
That makes sense given its entire origins are tied to Amazon’s birthday. While we’ll know for certain in the next couple of weeks, it seems highly likely that Prime Day 2024 will happen on either July 9-10 or July 16-17. If we were the kind to place bets, we’d say July 9-10 as the latter date is a little late on the month, but we’ll have to wait and see for certain soon.
Crucially, whenever the set date is announced, we’re likely to see early Prime Day 2024 deals emerge to build up anticipation. In particular, if you’re looking to buy Amazon products, it makes sense to wait a little bit until such announcements become official.
What to expect on Prime Day 2024
Prime Day is a pretty special sales event. It might technically only be exclusive to Amazon (more on that in a moment), but the company pulls out all the stops so you generally get plenty of value here. Outside of Black Friday, there’s no sale quite as good as Amazon Prime Day. In some cases, even Black Friday isn’t as good as Amazon’s offerings. It also has the key benefit of landing in the summer which is usually when your finances are less stretched rather than the holiday season when you realize there are seemingly endless expenses while you get your home prepared for the holidays, decorate everything, and visit tons of people during that time.
Prime Day feels more relaxed for you, while still offering the same wealth of discounts with a few extras thrown in.
Traditionally, Prime Day has a strong focus on Amazon owned products. That means if you’re looking to buy a Kindle or Echo speaker, you ideally want to wait until Prime Day for the discount. However, Amazon owns a lot more than it used to so you’ll also see big discounts on security equipment from Ring while there are great deals on Fire TVs and streaming sticks too. If you know Amazon owns it, you can expect to see it discounted during Prime Day 2024.
Alongside that, Amazon arranges many key deals with popular brands. Its focus is almost always on the brands that you actually want to own. Laptop deals and TV deals will certainly feature here. As well as that, count on seeing some great wearable deals along with Apple deals covering iPads, AirPods, Apple Watches, MacBooks, and anything else you can think of. Due to the time of year, you’ll often see garden equipment and grills on sale too. Talking of food, everyone’s favorite gadgets from Ninja like air fryers or blenders are also often popular in Prime Day sales.
Think of it this way — Amazon sells millions of products every day and it’s the go-to place for seemingly everything you could want to own. That thinking extends to Prime Day 2024 with a huge amount of its stock discounted. You’ll be surprised and impressed at how much is on sale during Prime Day.
Besides steady and reasonable discounts, there are also likely to be some significant discounts that are only briefly available via strict stock limits. Super cheap TVs are likely here but there may simply be a bargain streaming stick or even a PS5 if past sales are anything to go by. In many cases, you’ll be fine to check throughout the day but sometimes, you’ll need to be near to Amazon to avoid missing out on the absolute best deals.
That’s why we’re here to monitor all the best Prime Day deals so you don’t miss out on the deepest discounts.
Do other retailers have Prime Day deals?
Yes! If you’re worried you’re going to miss out because you don’t have an Amazon Prime membership (we’ll get to what to do), don’t be. Other retailers almost always launch their own sales at the same time in a bid to attract attention away from Amazon.
In past years, we’ve seen both Best Buy and Walmart launch their own summer sales with sometimes a week of deals emerging to compete with the couple of days that Amazon has to offer.
Does it work out as cheaper? Sometimes. If you don’t have a Prime membership, it makes sense to head to one of these retailers. Also, with the benefit of brick and mortar stores, you can often pick up your purchase the same day as you buy which can prove more convenient than Amazon.
Throughout the year, we see each retailer offering different strengths so knowing where to go depends on this. Best Buy and Walmart often has better TV and laptop deals than Amazon, while it also stocks a lot of outdoor equipment if you need something for your garden or yard. To get to the point — the best plan is for you to check all retailers to see where the best discounts are. Or, more realistically, check back here as it’s our job to monitor the best prices and deals.
Other retailers like Target and Dell are likely to host their own sales so it makes sense to shop around. While planning ahead, have a good think about what you actually need to buy. This is the last big sale until Black Friday and Cyber Monday (although you’ll see smaller sales later in the year) so you want to make sure that you’re organized.
Are Prime Day deals only for Prime subscribers?
Yes. To enjoy Prime Day, you need to be a Prime subscriber. However, there is an Amazon Prime free trial and that still makes you eligible for Prime Day. It’s available to new subscribers and anyone who has not had Amazon Prime in the last 12 months. It lasts a full 30 days and you get all the benefits like Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Music, and Prime Reading and Gaming too. You need to enter your payment details to sign up but you can cancel at any time so that no money is taken once the trial expires.
Students enrolled in an eligible higher education institution (i.e. most U.S. universities) can also enjoy an extended 6 month trial of Amazon Prime, while certain internet and cellular providers bundle such memberships in with some data plans. It’s worth checking before you commit.
If you truly don’t want (or are able) to sign up for Amazon Prime to check out Prime Day 2024, no problem. While you can’t check out the Amazon sale going on, you will be able to see the other discounts and sales going on with retailers like Best Buy and Walmart. We’d strongly recommend signing up for Prime just for July but there are at least backups with the other retailers if you’re not eligible or simply don’t want to.
You could also keep an eye on the Prime Day deals we post here and when you see one that’s perfect for you, sign up as the discount is likely to be greater than the price of Amazon Prime.
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