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What Does Prime Day Mean? A Guide For First-Timers…
Every year, before Black Friday, Amazon runs a massive sales event called Prime Day – here’s everything you need to know…
If you’re looking to pick up literally anything for quite a bit less money, Amazon’s annual Prime Day is a great place to do it.
From phones and tablets to smartwatches, 4K TVs, consoles and more, Prime Day is a huge sales event that spans across the entirety of Amazon’s store.
Next to Black Friday, Prime Day is arguably one of the biggest sales events of the year.
Amazon is a global behemoth, so when it does big sales events, it is a global event that is frequented by billions of shoppers.
How much money does Amazon make from Prime Day? According to Digital Commerce 360, Amazon Prime Day 2020 sales hit $10.4 billion across the 48 hours.
And that represented a 45% increase year-on-year; Amazon made $7.16 billion during Prime Day 2019. And that was a massive increase on Prime Day 2018.
Prime Day is getting more and more popular basically, and it is earning Amazon insane amounts of money every single year.
What is Amazon’s Prime Day?
In a nutshell, Amazon Prime Day is a 48 hour sales event that takes place across all of Amazon’s global online stores.
The first Amazon Prime day happened in July, 2015. Since then, Amazon has moved Prime Day to June.
Prime Day usually takes place in around the 20th of June – this has been the case for the last few years.
This year it officially starts on June 21 and runs to June 22, although there are some early deals knocking around now.
But there is a catch.
You need to be an Amazon Prime member to access Prime Day deals.
This is literally the only catch, however, and considering the savings you can make on Prime Day, getting a Prime membership is likely worth it.
How much is a Prime membership with Amazon?
Usually Amazon Prime costs £7.99 a month in the UK and $12.99 a month in the US, but Amazon is currently giving away 30 days for free.
You can get your FREE Amazon Prime membership here.
So you could technically get an Amazon Prime membership now, use it for the Prime event, and then cancel before your first payment kicks in.
As someone that has been an Amazon Prime member for the best part of a decade, though, I’d advise you to keep your Prime membership – it is super useful.
You get free access to things like Amazon Prime Video, free, next-day delivery on millions of items from Amazon, and access to Amazon’s music service.
You also get access to exclusive Prime Day deals too.
When is Prime Day 2021?
Amazon’s Prime Day 2021 kicks off on June 21 and runs until June 22. The event starts the moment June 21 begins, so a stroke after midnight on June 20.
As soon as the event is live, you will be able to access thousands of deals and lightning deals inside Amazon’s dedicated Prime Day landing page – you can view that page here (there’s already some deals in place).
Pay Close Attention To Amazon’s Lightning Deals
What are Lighting Deals? They’re basically super-sales that randomly kick in during Prime Day. A Lightning Sale on, say, Apple’s AirPods, might reduce the price by as much as 40% for 2 to 6 hours.
Keeping tabs on new Lightning Deals is fairly easy (you can do it here) and is the quickest way to save even more money on products during Prime Day.
And Amazon also does Lightning Deals in the run up to and after Prime Day. You can find all the latest ones here.
Is Prime Day Better Than Black Friday?
When it comes to mega global sales events, there are three big events each year: Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. But which is the best sales event of the three?
As always, it depends.
But according to data from Idealo, Amazon Prime Day, on average, is better than Black Friday for things like consoles, smartphones, laptops, smartwatches, and wireless speakers – so, tech basically.
| PRODUCT | PRIME DAY PRICE | BLACK FRIDAY PRICE | CYBER MONDAY PRICE |
|---|---|---|---|
| iPhone 11 | £575 | £535 | £535 |
| MacBook Air | £899 | £829 | £676 |
| Apple AirPods Pro | £142 | £169 | £169 |
| GHD Straightener | £74 | £81 | £81 |
| Amazon Echo Dot | £75 | £29 | £29 |
| York Cast Iron Dumbbell Set 20kg | £70 | £92 | £92 |
| Microsoft Xbox Series S | £250 | £379 | £370 |
| Bosch Series 4 Washing Machine | £429 | £349 | £349 |
| Asics Gel-Nimbus 22 Running Shoes | £87 | £82 | £93 |
| JBL Flip Essential Portable Speaker | £79 | £25 | £49 |
| SHARK DuoClean Powered Lift-Away True Pet Vacuum Cleaner | £229 | £199 | £199 |
| Samsung Q80T QLED 4K TV | £949 | £799 | £799 |
Cyber Monday is the worst for savings, with Black Friday coming in second place to Prime Day. Cyber Monday was only cheaper on 15% of occasions compared to Prime Day, for instance, while Black Friday was cheaper 31% of the time.
Prime Day had better deals 54% of the time when compared to Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
What does this mean? Pretty simple, really: if you want to get the most bang for your buck, Amazon’s Prime Day is the time to do it – on average, it is considerably cheaper than both Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Out of the three key discount days in the calendar, Amazon Prime Day has come up tops in terms of offering the most discounts across a variety of products.
Our study ultimately shows that focusing on one event such as Black Friday or Prime Day could result in spending much more than needed, and that these “deals” aren’t always real.
IDEALO
Is Prime Day Good For Buying 4K TVs?
As the data above suggests, some items are better during Black Friday than Prime Day.
One example of this from last year’s Prime Day and Black Friday is 4K TVs. During Prime Day, the average price of a 4K TV was £994 but during Black Friday it was £937 – a difference of almost 60 quid.
This means, if you’re after a TV this year, you’re best off waiting for Black Friday 2021, as you’ll likely save more money than you would during Prime Day 2021.
Still, it is well worth perusing both events just in case. Amazon could improve this year’s Prime Day with bigger discounts on TVs.
No one will know for sure until the event kicks off on June 21.
Just make sure you get yourself a free Amazon Prime Membership before because without one you won’t be able to access the deals.