What to Expect for Amazon Prime Day 2023

It’s an annual two-day sale that started in 2015. Aside from 2020, when the retailer bumped the sale to October due to the pandemic, and 2021, when the sale was held in June, Prime Day has taken place in mid-July.

Traditionally, Prime Day is a once-a-year event. Last year, however, Amazon held a second sale in October. While it was called the Prime Early Access Sale, an event meant to give shoppers a head start on the holiday season, it was basically a second Prime Day. There’s no way to know yet whether Amazon will host the second event again this year, but even if it does take place it won’t change the quality of deals available during the summer sale.

Amazon promotes early deals, discounts, and other promotions in the days leading up to the big event, and this sale will certainly follow the same pattern. There are usually offers across multiple categories from all sorts of brands. For Prime Day, this tends to include Amazon’s own lineup of devices, including Echo smart speakers, Fire tablets, Fire TVs, and Kindle e-readers. We also often see special offers for first-time subscribers to Amazon’s services, such as Prime Video, Amazon Music, and Kindle Unlimited.

CR will be looking closely at deals as they surface to determine whether the discounts are really worth it based on the average cost of an item, the realistic size of the discount, and the product’s performance in CR’s tests.

We expect price drops on popular items like Instant Pots, robotic vacuums, smartwatches, and mattresses as well as apparel, household goods, electronics, toys, and more. Amazon often promotes hundreds of thousands of deals, including discounts on popular seasonal and gift items.

With all Prime Day events, not all discounts are guaranteed to be available for the duration of the sale. There may be Lightning Deals, which have countdown clocks, encouraging shoppers to buy quickly rather than miss them. Other sales may end without warning if items go out of stock. For more on how to get the best deals, check out our tips.

Consumer Reports’ product experts will be tracking all the deals and sharing the best offers on top-tested products.

Ever since the first year of Prime Day, other retailers have held their own sales around the same time. Many have come to refer to this time as Black Friday in July, and it can be a great opportunity to find big savings that you wouldn’t see until the holiday shopping season. That means you can compare prices at different retailers to find the best offer available and save as much as possible no matter what you’re buying. Certain retailers may provide additional perks, such as free same-day delivery or curbside pickup to get you your items faster.

If you’re not already a Prime member, you’ll need to sign up to access the sale. (Check the Amazon policy on free trial memberships.) You can add items to a shopping list or even to your cart (you can always move them to “saved for later”) so that you can quickly access them during the sale to see whether they’re available at a discount.

Consumer Reports is tracking all the deals available before and during Prime Day. We’ll be comparing prices on tested products with each product’s typical cost, as well as watching the prices at other retailers, to help you avoid overspending or buying something that doesn’t work well. You can also take a look at CR’s Deals hub for the latest and best deals from Amazon and other major retailers leading up to and during the big sale event.

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