It’s official: Prime Day 2022 will take place on Tuesday, July 12, and Wednesday, July 13. The sale kicks off at 3 a.m. ET on July 12, and Amazon is promising more deals from more brands and sellers than ever before.
This year, the early sales will begin June 21, with new discounts on Amazon devices like Echo smart speakers, Fire TV smart TVs, and smart home products from Blink and Ring, as well as special early sales on a wide array of other items rolling out each day. Consumer Reports is keeping a close eye on all the best early Prime Day sales to highlight great prices on products that perform well, so you can shop with confidence that what you buy will actually be worth it, no matter the price.
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Though this two-day sale offer loads of deals and savings for Amazon Prime members, other major retailers typically hold sales around the same time, giving shoppers more options and opportunities to save. Best Buy, Target, and Walmart hold competing savings events, as do other retailers, like Bed Bath & Beyond, Home Depot, Wayfair, and more.
What is Prime Day?
The two-day sale, which includes deals on products of all kinds throughout the site, is open exclusively to Amazon Prime members. You can sign up for a free 30-day trial to take advantage of deals (and cancel before the trial period ends if you don’t want to pay for a membership).
Prime membership offers a variety of perks, including expedited shipping on select products, as well as access to Prime Video, exclusive deals, and more, all of which you can sample during the trial. To be a member, you have to shell out $15 per month or $139 per year—membership costs increased earlier this year from $13 per month and $119 per year.
It’s worth noting that without a Prime membership, you won’t even be able to see the majority of the deals on Prime Day. Some discounted prices are visible only when you’re logged in to a Prime account.
Are there any early Prime Day deals?
Every year, the most heavily promoted deals tend to be on Amazon’s own lineup of devices, including Echo smart speakers, Fire tablets, and Kindle e-readers. Typically, these discounts are the best the company offers on its own products (we see similar discounts during Black Friday, too), but the early sales may be $5 to $10 more than on Prime Day itself.
These offers almost always start ahead of the actual sale, and this year is no different. Starting June 21, Prime members can shop early Prime Day deals that will include up to 55 percent off Echo smart speakers, Fire tablets, Kindle e-readers, Ring home security systems, Blink video doorbells, and Eero mesh WiFi routers, among others. Amazon is also promising huge discounts on Fire TV smart TVs from Insignia, Pioneer, Toshiba, and Amazon’s own Fire TVs. Not every deal will be available right away, so keep an eye on Amazon and CR each day to see what new offers are available and worth considering.
CR will be looking closely at each deal to determine whether the discounts are really worth it, based on the average cost of an item, the realistic size of the discount, and product’s performance in CR’s tests.
What other deals can you expect this year?
In previous years, we’ve seen price drops on popular items like Instant Pots, robotic vacuums, smartwatches, and even mattresses. There are also typically deals and discounts at Amazon’s walk-in stores, including Amazon Fresh stores and Whole Foods.
As with past Prime Day events, not all discounts are guaranteed to be available for the duration of the sale. Lightning Deals will have countdown clocks, encouraging shoppers to buy quickly rather than miss the deal. Others 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 on Prime Day and sharing the best offers on top-tested products.
Will other retailers have Prime Day deals, too?
Ever since the first year of Prime Day, other retailers have held their own sales around the same time. Traditionally, we see sales from Target, Best Buy, and Walmart that run during the same time. In fact, Target just announced its Deals for Days sale will be returning again this year. The sale will start a day before Prime Day on July 11 and run through July 13. Best Buy has yet to reveal its plans for a July sale, and because Walmart just held its first Walmart+ Weekend sale, we’re not sure whether the big box retailer will have another big savings event so soon.
As Prime Day grew in popularity, other retailers began to hold sales to compete with Prime Day collectively, an unofficial shopping holiday that has come to be known as Black Friday in July. It’s still a bit too early to know whether that will be the case this year, but we’re confident that you’ll be able to find savings from more stores than just Amazon next month.
How should you prepare for Prime Day?
If you’re not already a Prime member, you’ll need to sign up for the free trial before the sale begins. This is the only way you can see most Prime Day prices. And you can easily spot the special savings by the blue badges labeling them as Prime Day deals. (Check the Amazon policy on free trial memberships.)
Lightning Deals, as the name implies, are limited-time discounts. They last anywhere from 4 to 24 hours. Amazon also limits the number of available items in a Lightning Deal, so if something is 100 percent claimed, you can join the waitlist and you’ll be notified if someone abandons their cart. Other discounts might not be as transparent in how long they’ll be available or even how good the deal is.
When the event is live, Consumer Reports will be comparing sale prices on tested products with each product’s typical cost to help you avoid overspending or buying something that doesn’t work as well as you want. You can also take a look at CR’s shopping hub for the latest and best deals from Amazon and other major retailers leading up to and during the big sale event.