Amazon Prime Day has finished - but there is another big sales event coming at the retailer on October 11 - 12. Amazon has recently announced the Prime Early Access Sale, which is another 48-hour of deals exclusively available to Prime members that will also serve as the retailer's opening to the Black Friday shopping season. While it may not be called Prime Day, it's clear that Amazon is going for something similar with this event. You'll be able to find all the best deals on our Amazon sales live blog.
- See all today's deals at Amazon (opens in new tab)
Until then, you can check out all of today's deals that are available to all so they longer require you to have an Amazon Prime membership. If you activated a free trial or just signed up to take part in this year's Prime Day deals, here's how to cancel Amazon Prime so you don't get charged for another month.
Prime Early Access Sale - is this Prime Day 2?
Almost. While Amazon isn't officially using the Prime Day term for its next big sales event on October 11 - 12, it is effectively the same set-up as the regular summer blowout. It's another two days of deals available exclusively for Amazon Prime members, so you'll need to sign up for a free trial or have an active membership (opens in new tab) to take part.
No specific deals have been announced just yet, but you can expect some of the year's lowest prices on Fire TVs and other Amazon devices. In fact, you can already pick up products like the Echo Show 5 and Echo 2 for their cheapest prices of the year so far (opens in new tab) if you're ready to buy today. Stick with us for the best deals in the Prime Early Access Sale next month.
Amazon Prime Day 2022: everything you need to know
When did Amazon Prime Day 2022 take place?
Amazon Prime Day ran from 0:00AM BST on Tuesday to 23:59 BST on Wednesday night in 2022. It was a huge two-day shopping bonanza that didn't just run in the UK - it also ran concurrently in the US, many European countries, and even over in Australia.
As always, we saw quite a few Prime Day deals dropping ahead of the event this year, mainly on Amazon's own brand devices. If you're already looking forward to the next Prime Day event, definitely remember that you can find really great sales upwards of a week in advance.
A few of these 'warm up' Prime Day deals this year also included really great promotions on popular subscription services such as Audible, Music Unlimited, and Kindle Unlimited. Prime Day isn't just a great time to be picking up cheap tech, it's also a good time to be thinking about trying out new streaming platforms or services with a range of extended free trials on offer.
Occasionally, Amazon also offers tie-in promotions that include free credit to spend on Prime Day. This year, there were no free credit up for grabs but you can enter a sweepstake to potentially win £5,000 (opens in new tab) if you buy from small businesses specifically. There's also an opt-in charity donation service called Amazon Smile (opens in new tab) that will make sure some of your Prime Day deals spend goes to charity. We highly recommend checking Smile out since it comes at no additional cost to customers.
Eighth: July 12-13, 2022
Seventh: June, 21-22, 2021
Sixth: Oct 13-14, 2020
Fifth: July 15-16, 2019
Fourth: July 16-17, 2018
Third: July 11-12, 2017
Second: July 12, 2016
First: July 15, 2015
Last year, Prime Day was held in late June for the first time. The event launched just eight months after Amazon was forced to postpone Prime Day until mid-October, following stock shortages and delivery delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
Prior to this, Prime Day was always held in July, so the confirmation of this same date for the 2022 event shows Amazon wants to return things to normal once more. This is the same month it took place when Amazon originally started the 24-hour shopping event back in 2015, before evolving it to 30 hours in July 2017 and later expanding it to a full two days.
What is Amazon Prime Day?
Prime Day is Amazon's biggest sale of the year. Usually held during the summer months, the annual two-day deals event is for Prime members only. And while there are non-Prime offers on the site throughout the sale, all the best discounts are exclusive Prime Day deals.
To be eligible for the offers, you'll either need to sign up for Prime membership (opens in new tab) for £7.99 per month, or £79 per year. You can also start a free 30-day Prime trial (opens in new tab) and use that throughout the sale.
Just make sure you remember to cancel Amazone Prime within the one-month trial period if you don't want to keep your membership going. Do have a read of our Amazon Prime review if you're not sure whether it's worth keeping after Prime Day.
1. Go to Amazon Prime (opens in new tab)
2. Select: Start your free trial
3. Follow the instructions
4. Start browsing deals (opens in new tab)
Now for some some history. Prime Day originally started in 2015 as a celebration of Amazon's 20th anniversary. Designed to encourage people to spend outside of the October-December holiday season, the online retailer says its only goal was to "offer a volume of deals greater than Black Friday".
Since then, it's ballooned into one of the biggest sales in the global retail calendar, with many other large retailers launching promotions of their own to take advantage of the huge online audiences around Prime Day - although the UK is smaller on this front than the US.
Just to give you an idea of how big it is, US figures show that total online spending across Prime Day - so that's all retailers and not just Amazon - exceeded $11 billion in 2021, according to the Adobe Index (opens in new tab). That's more than the $10.9 billion spent online during Cyber Monday two years ago and also more than the more recent Cyber Monday where spending was $10.7 billion. Of course, Prime Day is spread over two days rather than one, but these figures are still significant for an event that's generally focused on a single retailer.
And even though Amazon doesn't release sales data for Prime Day, it did report that over 250 million items were sold globally during the last event. DigitalCommerce estimates that helped Amazon's sales to grow by a "modest" 7% year on year. Based on that, we expect another bumper Amazon Prime Day in 2022.
We'll round up the best Prime Day deals at Amazon here once they start - and we'll bring you the biggest offers from the likes of John Lewis, Very, Argos and others too.
How to prepare for Prime Day 2023: pro tips
How do you find the best Prime Day deals?
1. Grab an Amazon Prime free trial
If you're not a Prime member yet you're not out of the running for this year's Prime Day deals. Closer to the event Amazon will likely offer a free trial of its Prime service, which means you'll be able to take part in the savings event and enjoy some extra time with Prime Video as well.
2. Know what you want to buy - but stay flexible
Having a good understanding of exactly what you want to get out of Amazon Prime Day will be key to winning. That way you'll be able to quickly recognise how good that discount really is, but stay flexible enough to know whether you should opt for another model.
For example, if you need a new 4K TV take a look at what features each brand offers, perhaps take a look at a few in person (Currys is great for displaying side by side comparisons in-store), and find a few options you would be happy to pick up. Get to know their prices and how cheap they can be so that you can identify a good deal quickly on the day.
However, it's also worth identifying the features that you could sacrifice in order to boost the specs that you really care about - you don't want to miss out on the best Prime Day deals just because the specific model you had in mind isn't taking part.
3. Keep some of that flexibility in your budget
Obviously, it's never a good idea to get caught up in the heat of the moment and spend crazy money for the sake of a good deal. However, a little room above your maximum spend will be helpful in securing the best value deals available.
Sometimes the best Prime Day deals aren't on the cheapest items available, but on the next level up that offers so much more without boosting the price too much. For example, if you're looking for a laptop you might be tempted by a super low price on a 32GB Chromebook. However, if the 64GB model is just £20 or £30 more expensive it's a far better investment.
4. Get in there early - but stick around for the full event
When the day itself comes, we'd recommend heading to Amazon as early as possible. This will give you first eyes on the biggest discounts Amazon is offering on the first day. And because many of the hottest Prime Day deals sell out particularly quickly you may need to move fast.
However, just because you've managed to secure an incredible discount straight away shouldn't mean your work is done. Amazon releases plenty more high profile savings throughout the course of the two-day event, so it's worth checking back in throughout as well.
5. You're not limited to Amazon - price check and price match
Prime Day isn't strictly limited to Amazon. We see more and more retailers offering competing discounts these days, and that extra competition often drives prices even further down. It's worth checking other shops aren't running their own version of Prime Day deals. Even if they aren't, some like Currys will offer price match guarantees and you may snag additional extras for shopping elsewhere.
