How to Get the Best Deals in Amazon's Prime Early Access Sale

Use these tips and strategies to find the hottest deals during the two-day sale

By Samantha B. Gordon, James K. Willcox

Amazon just announced a preholiday sale to take place this Oct. 11 and 12. The Prime Early Access Sale, similar to Amazon’s Prime Day event, will feature hundreds of thousands of deals over the 48-hour period. Amazon is promising the lowest prices of the year (so far), and we expect many of these discounts to at least match the lows we saw during Prime Day in July.

While this sale is not another Prime Day, we expect plenty of similarities. For instance, Amazon typically offers the best deals on its own products, such as Echo smart speakers, Fire tablets, Fire TVs and streaming devices, and Kindle e-book readers. Amazon also owns Blink (smart home security), Ring (smart doorbells), and Eero (mesh routers). These models are often discounted to similar prices during the holidays as well, so we expect to see at least a few discounts on these brands once the event starts.

But the sale extends well beyond Amazon’s own suite of products, and thousands of merchants are expected to take part in the event, providing discounts, bundle deals, and other offers on everything from clothing and toys to outdoor equipment and sporting goods to electronics and even appliances.

Unfortunately, with so many offers to sift through, it can be hard to find the best Amazon deals at the Prime Early Access event. The most popular offers can expire quickly, and new ones appear regularly, often without much notice. Consumer Reports will be keeping track of all the best deals on the best products, so bookmark our deal hub now and check back often for the latest.

The following tips can help you save time and shop smarter.

How Amazon Deals Are Organized

You have to be an Amazon Prime member to participate in the sales event. If you’re not already a Prime member, you can take advantage of Amazon’s free 30-day Prime trial offer to shop the sale. Cancel before the trial period ends and you won’t be charged. (The free trial is available only if you haven’t signed up within the past 12 months.)

The company runs several types of promotions for its major sales.

Deals of the Day last 24 hours, so many of the deals available Oct. 11 will not be available Oct. 12, but there will be a slew of new offers the second day of the sale. This may mean placing more than one order, but the free shipping available to all Prime members makes that less of a hassle.

Lightning Deals are even more limited promotions on specific items. They usually last only for a certain amount of time—usually just a few hours—or until the item sells out. And new ones can pop up as frequently as every 5 minutes.

Alexa Deals are offers available exclusively via Amazon’s voice-powered digital assistant. If you ask an Echo smart speaker, “Alexa, what are your deals?” you can get access to exclusive deals not available elsewhere, or access to certain deals an hour or so before they appear on the Amazon website. You can also download the Alexa app to access these offers if you don’t own an Alexa-enabled device.

What Will Be on Sale During the Prime Early Access Sale

You’ll be able to find deals and discounts on practically everything. Amazon is promising sales from major brands like New Balance and Peloton, and as we mentioned earlier we’re expecting to see sales on Amazon’s own products. And because this sale is designed to kick off the holiday shopping season, Amazon is heavily hinting at a slew of deals and discounts on toys, apparel, and other items that make great gifts. But regardless of what you’re hoping to get during the sale, odds are you’ll find it.

Amazon Prime Shopping Tips

Here are a few ways to score a good Amazon deal during the Prime Early Access Sale.

• Download Amazon’s smartphone app. It allows you to get “sneak peek” advance notice of deals and to sign up for alerts. The app will also let you see upcoming Lightning Deals before they’re active. You can use the app to create a “Watch this deal” list, so you can get notifications when a deal is about to go live. You can also add items directly to your cart and then select “Save for Later” to easily and quickly review the prices of products you want.

• Click the “Join Waitlist” button on the Amazon website or app for Lightning Deal items that have sold out. Items are deleted from a person’s shopping cart after 15 minutes if they haven’t completed the purchase, and you’ll get an alert if you’re next in line.

• Turn on 1-Click purchases to speed up your checkout. Go to your Amazon account, and click the “1-Click settings” link. You can then set up or check your payment method and shipping address.

• Use the free Amazon Assistant plug-in. It’s is available for most common browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Edge, and Safari. The plug-in can help you compare products and prices while searching and shopping online or get notifications when deals go live. It also provides Amazon shortcuts right in your browser. (Keep in mind that Amazon Assistant allows the company to do some tracking of your browsing behavior, as described in the plug-in’s privacy policy.)

• Bookmark CR’s shopping hub to see the best Amazon deals on CR’s top-tested products. CR’s product and shopping experts will be scouring the sale to help you find the top offers more easily.

• Compare prices. Other retailers, including Target, are running their own sales in October. Search for the products you want on their sites before buying from Amazon to make sure you’re getting the best price. (Details below.)

Check Other Retailers

Other big retailers, such as Best Buy, Target, and Walmart, generally hold their own sales to compete with Amazon when the retail giant hosts a big savings event.

This year, Target Deal Days will come earlier than the Early Access sale, falling on Oct. 6 to Oct. 8. You can choose drive-up or in-store pickup if you don’t want to wait for shipping.

Other major retailers, like Best Buy and Walmart, have yet to announce any sales in October, but that doesn’t mean they won’t have competitive pricing for the duration of Amazon’s event.

So what does all this mean for you? Whenever you add an Amazon deal to your cart, it may pay to check out some of these other retailers to see whether they have the product cheaper. Just remember that if you’re buying a Lightning Deal, you have only 15 minutes to complete an Amazon purchase before the item is removed from your cart and freed up for other customers.

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