Prime Day is basically Amazon’s version of Black Friday.
ZDNet has detailed Amazon’s every move for years, including its insane growth and negative impact on retail as a whole. Doom and gloom aside, one of the more fun aspects of the company is its annual fire-sale event. Pitched as Amazon’s “holiday of savings,” it gives Black Friday a run for its money — while also likely making Walmart and other rivals wince with jealousy.
Here’s everything we know about Prime Day 2021 so far.
What is Amazon Prime Day?
Amazon celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2015 by introducing a full day of sales on Amazon.com. The company offered deep discounts on Amazon-branded products as well as tens of thousands of other items from third-party sellers. The entire event, called Prime Day, was a huge success, and so Amazon has turned it into an annual sales extravaganza.
When is Prime Day 2021?
Amazon has revealed Prime Day 2021 will take place in June, but it hasn’t specified exact dates yet. For reference, in past years, Prime Day was held on the following dates:
July 15, 2015 (Wednesday): Lasted 24 hoursJuly 12, 2016 (Tuesday): Lasted 24 hoursJuly 11 (Tuesday) to July 12, 2017 (Wednesday): Lasted 30 hoursJuly 16 (Monday) to July 17, 2018 (Tuesday): Lasted 36 hoursJuly 15 (Monday) to July 16, 2019 (Tuesday): Lasted 48 hoursOct. 13 (Tuesday) to Oct. 14, 2020 (Wednesday): Lasted 48 hours
If we had to guess, Prime Day 2021 might be June 14 (Monday) to June 15 (Tuesday) this year.
Where will Prime Day 2021 be available?
Prime Day is available to Prime members in the US, UK, UAE, Spain, Singapore, Netherlands, Mexico, Luxembourg, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, China, Canada, Belgium, Austria, Australia, Turkey, and Brazil. Anyone can start a free 30-day Prime trial.
What can you expect from Prime Day 2021?
There will be thousands of deals this year — on not only Amazon’s own devices, such as the Amazon Echo, but also products across a range of categories, including business tech goodies. We anticipate deep cuts on Fire TVs, Fire tablets, Kindle e-readers, and Echo devices, but you should look for Black Friday-style deals across the entire site.
Expect some deals to last the full day, while others will be quick, limited-time deals.
What are the best Prime Day 2021 deals?
ZDNet plans to once again publish round-ups of all the best deals on Amazon by category, including “anti-Prime Day” deals from rival retailers. Amazon, obviously, has not yet announced any deals for Prime Day 2021. So, in lieu of that, here are some of the best deals that Amazon offered during Prime Day 2020 if you care to see what types of deals might be available again:
Prime Day: Best Alexa device deals on Echo, Kindle, and Fire TV
Apple Prime Day deals: Best AirPods, iPad, and Apple Watch sales
Best Prime Day deals: Smartphones and mobileBest Prime Day deals: Cables, adaptors, chargers, and hubsBest Prime Day deals: Windows 10 laptopsBest Prime Day deals: Chairs, desks, and home office furnitureBest Prime Day deals: Storage, SSD, and flash drivesBest Prime Day deals 2020: Chromebook laptopsBest Prime Day deals: Webcams, mics, green screens, and video studio gearBest Prime Day deals: Robots, Raspberry Pi, and electronic kitsBest anti-Prime Day deals: Sales from Walmart, Target, elsewhere
Business Bargain Hunter’s top picks
In this guide below from last year, we selected on-sale items that professionals, remote workers, and commuters might find interesting. This page will be updated for 2021, so bookmark it and check back throughout Prime Day this year.
Early Prime Day 2021 deals
Prime day deals start earlier and earlier every year. Once we have an official date from Amazon, we’ll begin to get some idea of when the early sales will kick-off, and we will update the page below with all those deals once they’re available.
Can anyone shop Prime Day 2021?
Prime Day, naturally, is aimed at Amazon Prime subscribers. The service costs $119 per year (or $12.99 per month), but students get half off and there’s a 30-day free trial. Prime gives Amazon shoppers a few distinct advantages, including free one- or two-day shipping on most items, as well as access to Prime Video, Prime Music, Prime Pantry, Prime Now, etc.
If you’ve never subscribed to Prime, you can get a free one-month trial. We recommend signing up as soon as possible in order to shop Prime Day early deals during your trial period. You can always cancel before the trial ends.
How to find the best deals on Prime Day 2021
Here are our tips on how to take full advantage of Amazon’s sales event.
Prime Day 2021 hub
If you want to one-stop shop with all the best deals, visit the company’s Prime Day hub. It’ll have the lowest prices and sales across a range of categories. In past years, a new deal was posted every five minutes over Prime Day.
Voice-shop with Amazon Alexa
Amazon tends to give people a head start on deals if they voice-shop with Alexa. It did the same thing with Black Friday in the past — giving voice shoppers up to a seven-hour lead. To order something by voice, just say to your Alexa device, “Alexa, what are your deals” followed by “Alexa, add [the item] to my cart.” Alexa will confirm your order, but if you prefer, you can set up a 4-digit pin within the Alexa app to prevent unintended purchases.
Amazon Assistant
Amazon Assistant is a free browser plugin (for Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Microsoft Edge) that lets you watch for product comparisons. It provides shortcuts to popular Amazon hubs and issues desktop notifications when deals that you’re watching 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 is Prime Day, these sales should be extra noteworthy. If Prime Day 2020 is like last year’s event, there will be new deals going live every five minutes, including “Lightning Deals”, which are limited-time and often end in minutes.
And finally, there’s Prime Early Access deals, a type of Lightning Deal for Prime members. Amazon typically gives Prime members 30-minute early access to certain deals, though all deals are only available while supplies last. To stay on top of these different deals, use Amazon’s app, where you can view most deals 24 hours in advance and sign up for alerts.
You can also go here to see deals you’re watching, and you can get the deals delivered to you via Amazon’s daily deals email.
Amazon Coupons
Did you know Amazon.com serves up 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 at the top for “Today’s Deals,” and in the menu of categories at the top, click on “Coupons” (or use this link).
When you find an item you want to buy, click on the “Clip this coupon” button near the price to clip the coupon. When you’re done shopping, go to your cart and check out. In the cart details, you will see the coupon amount deducted from your total.
Price tracker and comparison tools
If you want to check a deal’s price against what Amazon has charged in the past, try CamelCamelCamel. It’s a free Amazon price tracker that monitors millions of products and serves up their price history.
Wikibuy is an extension for Chrome that lets you check to see if a deal is at its lowest price on the web. Another extension is Honey. It instantly informs you if any third-party sellers have the same product for a lower price. Also check out the site PriceGrabber or the extension PriceBlink, both of which let you see if an item is cheaper elsewhere.
Check competitor sites
Finally, be sure to check other shopping sites. Walmart, Best Buy, and other retailers have been known to roll out their own sales on Prime Day in an attempt to lure shoppers.
