After the success of the first Amazon Prime Day earlier this year, it’s no surprise that Amazon wants to help its Prime subscribers get the best deals ahead of the holiday season. And if you’re like us and start buying now, we have good news: Prime Day Early Access Sale from Amazon is coming in a few weeks, and we’ve got the rundown on what to expect.
To be clear, this will be Amazon’s second Prime Day event this year, and it’s all about holiday savings.
Likewise: Prime Day 2 is official: Amazon hosts “Prime Early Access Sale”
Prime Early Access Sale, or Prime Day 2, is the follow-up to Amazon’s Prime Day event in July – except it’s geared towards the holidays and October. The company will offer its Prime subscribers significant discounts on key products, as well as tens of thousands of deals from third-party retailers like Samsung, KitchenAid, and more.
Amazon announced that the Prime Early Access Sale will take place on October 11th and 12th. It begins at 12:00 p.m. PDT and runs for 48 hours.
The holiday shopping event is offered in 15 countries: Austria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Great Britain and the United States.
Like earlier this year, the issue isn’t where it’s available, it’s who this offer is being offered to. You must be a Prime member to take advantage of these offers.
You can expect thousands of great offers this year. As usual, Amazon plans to offer steep discounts on its Signature devices, including the Echo and Signature Fire TVs. In addition to these deals, Prime Day is focused on holiday shopping including toys, household, pet and kitchen products.
Holiday gift guides will be in full swing, and Amazon will feature a top 100 list of some of the season’s most popular gift items. If you’ve been sleeping on tech deals, the good news is there will be plenty of retailers partnering with Amazon for the 48-hour shopping extravaganza, including Samsung, iRobot and KitchenAid.
We expect some of the deals to be ongoing all the time, but others will be flash deals that fall as fast as every five minutes. The flash offers usually have a set amount available. So if you see it and want it, you might want to add it to your cart right away.
Plus, Prime subscribers can now take advantage of some amazing deals. You can get Amazon Music Unlimited for free for four months — or, if you want to bundle it up, you can get the Echo Dot (3rd Gen) for just $0.99 with a one-month Amazon Music Unlimited subscription. These offers start now and end on October 12th.
If you live in a hub city and prefer reservations to dinner, Amazon is offering its subscribers a year-long subscription Grubhub+ free. The offer includes unlimited shipping from $0 on orders over $12, and you can get grocery discounts and rewards from hundreds of thousands of vendors across the country.
Like earlier Prime Day this year, Prime Day 2 is aimed at Amazon subscribers and only members can get the products for these amazing deals. The service costs $139 per year or $14.99 per month. Students get a 50% discount on their membership as long as they verify their status, and those using SNAP/EBT can also get it at a discounted rate. In addition to these membership offers, you can now also get a 30-day free trial.
If you have never subscribed to Amazon Prime and sign up for the trial now, you still have the benefit of the free trial during Prime Day 2 sales and deals. With membership, you not only get discounts on essential products, great savings, and free 1-2 day shipping, but you also get access to Prime Video, Prime Music, Prime Pantry, Prime Now, and more.
Prime Day 2: How to find the best deals, plus tips and tricks
Amazon’s Prime Early Access sales center
If you’re looking for the best one-stop deals or are short on time during the 48-hour window, Amazon has one Prime Early Access Sale Hub for Prime Day 2 offering the lowest prices and sales across a range of categories. We expect new offers to be published every five minutes.
If you’re looking for ideas, Amazon also has top 100 lists of gift ideas for hometown and toysmaking it easy for you to decide what to get your friends and family members for this holiday.
Voice shop with Amazon Alexa
Amazon tends to give people a head start on deals when they talk to Alexa. In the past, it has done the same thing on Black Friday – giving voice shoppers a head start of up to seven hours. To order something by voice, just say to your Alexa device, “Alexa, what are your deals,” followed by “Alexa, add.” [the item] Add to My Cart.” Alexa will confirm your order, but if you prefer, you can set a four-digit PIN in the Alexa app to prevent accidental purchases.
Amazon assistant
Amazon assistant is a free browser plugin (for Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and Microsoft Edge) that allows you to search for product comparisons. It provides shortcuts to popular Amazon hubs and issues desktop notifications when deals you’re viewing go live.
Deals of the day, lighting deals, and Prime Early Access deals
Amazon also has its regular “Gold box deals of the day.” However, since it’s Prime Day, those sales should be particularly notable.
And finally, there are Prime Early Access deals, which are sort of a lightning deal for Prime members. Amazon typically grants Prime members 30-minute early access to certain offers, although all offers are only available while supplies last. To keep up to date with these different deals, use Amazon’s app, where you can see most deals 24 hours in advance and sign up for notifications.
You can also go here to see offers you are following and to have the offers sent to you by email Email with Amazon’s daily deals.
Amazon Coupons
Did you know Amazon.com offers coupons? There’s actually an entire hub on Amazon where you can find coupons for electronics, pet supplies, toys, and other items. Just go to Amazon.com, then click on the link for “Today’s Deals” at the top and click on “Coupons” in the categories menu at the top (or use this link).
When you find an item you want to purchase, click the “Cut This Coupon” button next to the price to cut the coupon. When you’re done shopping, go to your cart and check out. In the shopping cart details you will see the voucher amount that will be deducted from your total.
Price tracker and comparison tools
If you want to compare the price of an offer to what Amazon has charged in the past, give it a try CamelCamelCamel. It is a free Amazon price tracker that monitors millions of products and shows their price history.
An available extension is Treasure, which lets you know immediately when third parties offer the same product at a lower price. Also check out the website PriceGrabber or the extension PriceBlinkwhich you can use to see if an item is cheaper elsewhere.
Check competitor websites
Finally, check other shopping sites. Walmart, best buyand other retailers have been known to launch their own sales on Prime Day to entice shoppers.