Everything we know about Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days

Amazon's second Prime Day-level event of the year — called Prime Big Deal Days — is live right now. The 48-hour sale is happening through Oct. 11 and it's exclusive to Prime members. Amazon is rolling out new deals across product categories all day, including those on tech, fitness equipment, home and kitchen gadgets and more.

To help you prepare and learn about what's worth buying, we answered some frequently asked questions about Prime Big Deal Days below.

Amazon’s fall Prime Day is 48 hours long. It's live right now and runs through tomorrow, Oct. 11.

Prime Big Deal Days is a Prime Day-level mega sale — there will be discounts on items across various categories — that Prime members have exclusive access to. It’s available to shoppers in 19 countries this October: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, the U.S. and the U.K.

Sellers tend to slash prices on products across all categories during Amazon sales events. During Prime Big Deal Days, however, we expect to see an emphasis on giftable products, like handheld tech, gaming bundles, beauty sets and kitchen appliances. In recent years other retailers have promoted early Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals in October. This gives shoppers extra time to buy gifts and spread their spending out across a few months.

Amazon also offers Lightning Deals during its sales events, which are great opportunities to save. These limited-time offers give shoppers a short window to purchase and check out. While you can’t really prepare for Lightning Deals, be sure to browse through them during the event and checkout quickly if something catches your eye — once Lightning Deals are live, items tend to go out-of-stock quickly.

Yes, you need a Prime membership to shop the sale. If you’re interested in joining Amazon Prime during the event, you can register online for a standard membership or for discounted options available for students and those receiving certain types of government assistance. Students even get exclusive discounts like free access to Course Hero for one month and Calm for three months, plus 10% off travel expenses through StudentUniverse.

There are a number of ways to get Amazon Prime access for free. Notably, new Prime members get a 30-day free trial and new Prime Student members get a six-month free trial.

Last year was the first time Amazon hosted two Prime Day-level events in one year — there was Prime Day in July 2022 and the Prime Early Access Sale in October 2022. The retailer is following the same schedule in 2023 with Prime Day falling on July 11 and July 12, and the Prime Big Deal Days sale set for Oct. 10 and 11. Amazon has not commented on whether it will permanently host two Prime Day-level events every year going forward.

Amazon does not disclose Prime Day sales, but Digital Commerce 360 estimates that the retailer hit $12.90 billion in global sales during July’s Prime Day event. This marks a 6.7% increase in sales compared to Prime Day 2022, which saw $12.09 billion in sales. The moderate increase from 2022 to 2023 is consistent with Amazon’s recent growth trends — Digital Commerce 360 estimates that the last time Amazon saw double-digit growth in Prime Day sales year-over-year was between 2019 and 2020, when Prime Day sales increased 45.1%. Slower sales growth may be due to shoppers cutting back on spending in response to inflation, according to Digital Commerce 360.  

Amazon sold more than 375 million items worldwide during Prime Day 2023 this summer, and the first day of the 48-hour event was the largest sales day in Amazon history, according to the retailer. Bestselling products included the Amazon Fire TV Stick, Laneige lip balm, Apple AirPods and the Bissell Little Green Portable Deep Cleaner. Alexa-enabled devices were also popular products, according to Amazon.

We put together a list of Select readers’ favorite products during this year’s sale, including Crest’s 3D Whitestrips, a Fullstar vegetable chopper and the Amazon smart plug.

Yes, shoppers can expect to see sales at other retailers during October’s Prime Day. For example, Walmart's holiday kickoff sale is happening through Oct. 12 and Lowe’s is hosting a Super Savings sale from Oct. 9 to Oct. 11.

Zoe Malin is an associate updates editor at NBC Select who’s been covering Amazon since 2020. She wrote Select’s history of Amazon Prime Day, as well as a variety of Amazon Prime Day sales articles. For this piece, Malin researched Amazon Prime Day and referenced Select’s other Amazon coverage.

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