Amazon Prime Day has evolved into a summertime Black Friday equivalent for many companies, with two main days of "epic deals" typically surrounded by a prolonged period of ongoing sales and tempting discounts…
What is Amazon Prime Day?
Running since 2015, Amazon Prime Day started as a one-off event to mark the company’s 20th anniversary and has now become an annual staple in the discount diary – to the point where a second ‘Early Access’ event followed last year’s event in October. As the name suggests, it’s primarily aimed at Amazon Prime members, but that doesn’t mean that manufacturers won’t also make good use of the window to offer some potentially great deals to anyone using the site.
You’ll find many price reductions that remain in place for the duration of the event, along with other ‘Lightning Deals’ limited to a set time or a fixed number of items, so it can often be worth checking in a few times if you want to be at the front of the queue for the latest price cuts. It’s also worth noting that the Prime Day sales don’t just apply to the main online store, with deals and discounts also on offer across the wider range of Amazon services, so if its music and movie output is more of interest to you, then it can also be a good time to bag some quality content at a bargain price.
When is Amazon Prime Day?
After last year’s event saw Prime Day back into its usual July slot, it’s once again business as usual with a similar 11-12 July window for the main event this time around (with 11 being a prime number if you enjoy that kind of symmetry!). It runs from 00.01am on the morning of the 11th through to 11.59pm the following night although, as mentioned, that doesn’t mean you won’t still find a few good deals around either side of those two days – so you’ve got a decent window in which to either save yourself a bundle or hide your phone to avoid temptation.
If the timing doesn’t align with your bank balance right now, then don’t feel too bad about missing out as it would be no surprise to see Amazon repeat last year’s trick and run a second event in a few months’ time to catch that pre-Christmas market. Plus, of course, there’ll be the inevitable Black Friday bargains to follow – making 24 November another date for that discount diary.
Is Amazon Prime Day only open to Prime members?
That is very much the primary audience, with the event billed as being exclusive to Amazon Prime members – even though there may still be deals open to all. However, if you are a non-member there’s no harm in signing up, even if only for this one month, as it can more than pay for itself with a single purchase. If you haven’t been a member during the past 12 months, you should be eligible for the 30-day free trial – which you will need to register a payment option for, so you’ll need to cancel the account before it auto-renews at the current £8.99 monthly fee if you don’t want to continue as a paying member.
Prime members will certainly get plenty more options to save money (or rather spend less), compared to those who haven't signed up. As an added incentive to get involved, the sales can extend beyond the main online store, with the many other perks of Prime membership also coming into effect. This can include discount titles, and even a few 'free' ones and other bonus content, through its Prime Gaming portfolio of PC games (with a Twitch subscription thrown in), along with cheap films and boxsets through its Prime Video catalogue, and a similar story for its Amazon Music and Prime Reading portfolio.
As a side note, there are other perks for your membership, with free same/next day delivery a common staple, its Grocery Delivery service (in collaboration with Morrisons), and there are things like one year of Deliveroo Plus (for free food deliveries when you spend more than £25), a 30-day trial of Audible, and access to Amazon Photos, with unlimited picture storage and up to 5Gb of video. So, if you do sign up you can make sure you get your money’s worth one way or another!
What Amazon Prime Day deals can we expect in 2023?
Amazon doesn't give too much away ahead of the event itself, although you can find a few items in the pipeline listed on the Amazon Prime Day front page. Some of the ‘early deals’ you’ll see posted elsewhere are just fitting into Amazon’s usual daily discounts, though Amazon itself has posted some Early Access offers on its own range of products. While the bulk of the deals will fall under that Prime Day banner, getting some bargains on the site a day or two in advance is a good way for companies to get the jump on the opposition before things start flooding in on the 11th July, so non-members might still find a few price cuts outside of the Prime listings.
As a few Prime examples based purely on the time of writing, Amazon was offering up to 40% off its Amazon Fire TV 4-Series (with the 50-inch model down from £499 to £299 and the 55 inch version down from £549 to £349), plus the usual deals across its Echo range of devices. Technics had a few deals on headsets and earbuds, such as £100 (33%) off its EAH-A800E-K earphones, down to £199, while Samsung was offering 41% of its Galaxy Watch4 (down to £219 from £369).
You should also be able to find a host of movies, music, and videogames to pick up at discount prices, such as Ubisoft running up to 80% off its gaming back catalogue (for example Far Cry 6 for Xbox was down to £14.99 from £59.99), and EA currently offering a similar selection of cut-price titles (FIFA 23 on XSX down to £24.99 from £69.99). We should point out that those deals are largely based on the launch RRP and their current retail value will have dropped since then, so the real discount might not be quite as big as it looks, but there should still be some good bargains out there!
However, the big names – and hopefully some equally big discounts – will really start to drop once Prime Day itself gets underway. Not everything will go up 00.01am on the 11th, so you might want to check back in on a semi-regular basis and use the varying filters to help fine-tune your search. And rest assured that Amazon will offer up plenty of recommendations based on your earlier browsing options!
While some of the discounts may be in single percentage figures, it’s not unusual to find big ticket items at 25-35% off, and even some at 50% and higher (you can use the drop-down tab at the top to list the deals in order to find the biggest discounts). Plus, as mentioned earlier, there are those ‘Lightning’ or ‘Wow’ Deals to keep an eye out for, offering short-term first-come-first-served discounts, sometimes with as little as a two-hour window.
Overall, it’s perhaps worth bearing in mind that while we’re all looking for some great bargains, the companies involved are also seeing Amazon Prime Day as a chance to shift some old stock – with Amazon even having an ‘Outlet’ page for overstocked items. So, for example, if we’re talking TVs, you can expect to see a fair few of the 2022 line-ups to be getting some very healthy discounts (even more so if you can live with an older 2021 model)– and perhaps a few from the upgraded 2023 range if they need to up their sales figures!
There can be a lot to look through, so you can either plan ahead and use the varying search options to target some very specific criteria, or just scroll through the multiple pages of deals until a particular item catches your eye or you spot an overly-generous discount that might be too good to ignore. Just don’t feel the need to overspend with that fear of missing out (or FOMO if you’re under 30) if you don’t have the finances right now – the chances are that you won’t have too long to wait until Amazon rolls out the red carpet for the next big discount event…
As always, we’ll be posting our own pick of the ongoing deals during the two days – so after the 11th July this section will hopefully be buried beneath a sizeable list of healthy discounts. And please do feel free to get involved by posting any cut-price offerings that have caught your eye and might be of interest to your fellow AVForums members!
SOURCE: Amazon (via website)
IMAGES: Amazon
