Amazon Prime Day 2020 is now well overdue, but a new report claims to have leaked the date of the retailer’s biggest shopping event of the year. October 13 is said to be the new date for Prime Day deals.
We'll have to wait for official word from Amazon, but if it’s true, it means we’re just over two weeks away from a huge wave of Amazon Prime Day deals on everything from laptops, TVs, iPads and Kindles to instant pots, Dyson cordless vacuums and more. And that’s exciting.
So could the report be true? Well, this date does correlate with expectations that Amazon Prime Day will hit during October, and while Amazon has only officially told the public that its annual savings extravaganza will take place during the final quarter of 2020, it makes sense for the retailer to launch separate to the Black Friday buzz.
Not only that, but an email to third-party sellers previously surfaced in which Amazon Prime Day was suggested to launch during October, and now that we're in the final week of September it seems this is the most likely eventuality.
Do I need Amazon Prime for Prime Day deals?
Yes. If you want to take part in Amazon’s biggest shopping event of the year, you’ll need Amazon Prime. The subscription service costs £7.99/month, or £79/year, and comes with a host of benefits - not least free fast shipping and access to Prime Video. However, if you don't want a full membership, you can still take part in Prime Day by signing up for a free 30-day trial. You can cancel it at any point before the 30 days end with no strings attached. Sign up for Amazon Prime now
It makes sense for Amazon to delay its Prime Day deals for several reasons. First and foremost, consumers are facing an economic downturn and probably won't have as much money set aside for a spending spree. In July, when Amazon Prime Day usual happens, much of the world was still in lockdown because of the pandemic, so a delay was warranted.
Many manufacturers in the UK and worldwide should be more prepared by then, too, and Amazon Prime Day 2020 will present a good opportunity to make some much-needed revenue. Many goods are still sitting in warehouses as essential items were rightly prioritized, but no retailer will want to wait until Black Friday 2020 to sell in bulk again.
Even if the Amazon Prime Day 2020 date does fall on October 13, we have a lot of questions: What Prime Day sales are expected this year, and on which items will we see the best Prime Day deals? Should you buy on Prime Day or wait until Black Friday?
We'll answer all those pressing questions while we await official Amazon Prime Day 2020 details from the retailer.
When is Amazon Prime Day 2020 in the UK?
The date of Amazon Prime Day 2020 will be October 13 - if the recent leaks are credible, and they sound as though they might be. First reported by CNET, it appears that warehouse employees have blacked out holiday time during October 13 - 20, so we're expecting Prime Day 2020 to fall at least within that timespan. Earlier this month, we also heard from CNBC that an email to third-party sellers offered up a placeholder date of October 5. Despite all of this, Amazon has come out and said that no date has been announced.
While the leaks seem to offer a date, we typically see Prime Day deals beginning on a Monday and lasting 48 hours. October 13 falls on a Tuesday this year, which would be out of tradition. Nevertheless, 2020 has taught us that everything is subject to change, though if we do go by previous years, that leaves one of four choices for the start of Prime Day 2020:
- Monday, October 5, 2020
- Monday, October 12, 2020
- Monday, October 19, 2020
- Monday October 26, 2020
Before the initial delay of Prime Day, we predicted the event would start on either July 13, or possibly the week before on July 6 - so a three-month delay on this would suggest October 5 or October 12 as the new date, and 'mid-October' would point to the 12th or 19th as the likely start date. October 13 does fall neatly within this timeframe, but again we're still waiting on official word from Amazon so there's no guarantee.
Amazon may have to work around Apple's iPhone 12 launch date, which is still unknown, but likely to hog the spotlight.
As soon as we have confirmation of the Prime Day 2020 date, we'll be sure to update this page so you can prepare your Amazon wish list.
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Is Amazon Prime Day postponed this year?
It's September, so Amazon Prime Day has definitely been delayed. To which date, though, remains to be seen. We first heard of delays from July to "at least August" reported Reuters on April 3, and then the Wall Street Journal nabbed an exclusive in May that indicated September was the confirmed Prime Day date. This all comes after Amazon limited the number of goods on sale, to prioritise essential items.
There's also the possibility that Amazon could launch Prime Day in different regions, depending on where each is in the re-opening phase. And then there's speculation that Amazon could scrap Prime Day 2020 entirely, but with the need to keep cash moving all the more necessary we can't see that happening.
Is Amazon Prime Day postponed this year?
It's September, so Amazon Prime Day has definitely been delayed. To which date, though, remains to be seen. We first heard of delays from July to "at least August" reported Reuters on April 3, and then the Wall Street Journal nabbed an exclusive in May that indicated September was the confirmed Prime Day date. This all comes after Amazon limited the number of goods on sale, to prioritise essential items.
There's also the possibility that Amazon could launch Prime Day in different regions, depending on where each is in the re-opening phase. And then there's speculation that Amazon could scrap Prime Day 2020 entirely, but with the need to keep cash moving all the more necessary - and the leaked details above - we can't see that happening.
The best Amazon Prime Day deals we expect to see in 2020
Deals on Amazon Prime Day often follow the same trends every year. That means we can make some strong predictions about which products we expect to see discounted - and by how much - and which items are likely to have the best Prime Day deals.
The biggest discounts on Prime Day 2020 will almost certainly involve Amazon's own tech. We're talking about Kindle deals, Echo price drops, and Fire TV discounts. Last year, for example, the price of the Kindle (2019) dropped from £69.99 to £49.99 - that’s just short of a 30% discount. At that stage the e-reader had only been available to buy for a few months, so now that we’re 15 months on, we’re holding out for an even bigger price drop on the cheapest Kindle on Prime Day this year.
Even the premium Kindle Paperwhite had a $40 price cut, taking the price from £119.99 to £79.99. That was the biggest discount of the year - we didn’t see it drop further, even over Black Friday or in the run-up to Christmas.
There’s a very high chance that this year’s Prime Day deals on Amazon devices will be the best prices we’ll see all year, once again. So, if you’re holding out for an Echo, Fire TV Stick, Kindle, Ring Doorbell or other Amazon device, we recommend buying it on Prime Day: if trends from previous years play out again, we don’t expect the price to drop lower for the rest of the year.
Amazon Prime Day laptop deals: our predictions
In recent years we've seen some very good Prime Day laptop deals, across lots of different categories. That includes cheap Chromebooks, Windows laptops and a few Apple MacBooks. Now the latest MacBook Pro is on sale, expect it to go fast.
Last year, Amazon sold over 100,000 laptops during Prime Day. Over the last six months we’ve seen demand for laptops grow sharply, with the pandemic forcing more people to work and study from home. Given that Amazon will be looking to encourage you to spend now, rather than waiting until Black Friday - and given the increasing fears of a second wave - we expect to see more Prime Day laptop deals than last year, and potentially bigger price cuts on both premium and budget models.
That extends to gaming laptops. Last year we saw some great Prime Day gaming laptop deals, including a 20% discount on the powerful HP OMEN 15-dc0029na, for example, which dropped the price from £1,799.95 to £1,439.99. Meanwhile, the excellent mid-range Acer Nitro 5 AN515-52 Gaming Notebook had a £350 discount, cutting the price from £1,0999 to £749.99.
A word of warning though: Prime Day is usually a good time of year to buy a Chromebook. There were some impressive price cuts on a number of Asus Chromebooks last year, with some devices dropping as low as £129.99 (including the excellent Asus Chromebook C223NA, which received a £100 price cut to get there).
This year may be different though. There have been stock issues over the last few months, with some Chromebooks selling out, and while stock is more stable now, there’s a chance we may see fewer big discounts here over Prime Day as a result. Nevertheless, overall we're confident we'll see lots of very good Amazon Prime Day laptop deals at all budgets again this year.
And then there are the staples of every major online shopping event: we'll see Amazon Prime Day deals on TVs, iPads, instant pots, DNA kits – expect all of those, and more, to be reduced in price, too.
Buy on Amazon Prime Day? Or wait until Black Friday?
You're going to see a lot of prices are at their all-time lowest during Amazon Prime Day, but so will Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2020. When you should buy?
The answer is very simple: Amazon Prime Day usually comes sooner by about three to four months compared to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. That's 90 to 120 extra days of enjoying whatever you buy, which is a nice perk. Why wait if you really want it. But if you can hold off, prices on tech tends to drop even more as they age.
What's interesting is that because both online shopping events are a such a big win for consumers, Amazon (and to a lesser extend other retail chains) have conditioned us to buy big-ticket items two times a year: Prime Day and Black Friday/Cyber Monday.
How to shop on Prime Day in 2020
1. Check out our deals predictions and, eventually our Prime Day deals list
There are also too many deals available on Prime Day. It's never a problem finding discounts, it's always an issue of figuring out what deals are worth your money. That's why we always set up a curated list during the 48-hour sales marathon.
We spent some good time last Black Friday thinking about smart ways to shop on Amazon – they're still some great Prime Day tips and tricks.
2. Amazon Prime Day has historically required being a Prime member, so be sure to have a subscription on Prime Day
Amazon started Prime Day in 2015 as a clever way to drive up its Prime subscription count, and this online shopping marathon – conveniently opposite Black Friday – accomplished just that.
You'll need to sign up for Prime (you can get a free 30-day trial), which comes with two-day free shipping and Prime Video access, among other smaller perks. In some cities, Amazon has rolled out free one-day and same-day shipping on certain items.
3. Create a wish list to curate what you want, as there will be loads of deals
You're also going to want to create a wish list ahead of time, which will let you sort out what you want and how much everything costs. This will give you a head start. You'll be able to see which deals dropped in price and which did not.
4. Snap up the best Prime Day 2020 deals before they're gone
The numbers don't lie. Last year's Amazon Prime Day stats gave us insight into what sold in big quantities nearly 12 months ago. It's shocking, really.
The retailer shipped 100,000 lunchboxes, 100,000 laptops, 200,000 TVs, 300,000 headphones, 350,000 luxury beauty products, 400,000 pet products, 650,000 household cleaning supplies, and more than one million toys.
We often find the best deals to go in a matter of minutes, at which time Amazon rolls out a waitlist for those who were just behind the curve.
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How competitive were Prime Day deals at Amazon last year?
A price monitoring company called Minderest (as reported by PR Newswire) compared prices of 566 of the most in-demand products over Prime Day to see how they stacked up against rivals stores listed on Google Shopping.
58.05% of them were cheapest on Amazon UK, compared to a massive 81.9% in the US where Amazon is annihilating the competition on a regular basis.
If anything, that UK figure is a testament to how competitive the UK market is and we did notice other stores having big sales of their own around Prime Day and a lot of price matching happening too.
It's also a solid reminder to double check prices elsewhere on Prime Day (we always do this before highlighting a deal for you) as you might get a better deal from the likes of John Lewis, Currys and Argos.
Amazon devices, as expected, got the best deals with an average 45% reduction on their RRPs compared to 37% in 2018. According to audience research from Numerator, 65.8% of surveyed shoppers said they were extremely or very satisfied with the deals available.
Last year's best Amazon Prime Day deals
Amazon Prime Day 2020 is undoubtably going to be different than any other as the date shifts to later in the year. But we suspect many of the deals will mirror what we saw last year.
Last year Prime members were snapping up products throughout the 48-hour event with over 175 million items sold. That's more than Amazon sold on Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
That's why we're re-posting some of the top deals from last year's Prime Day event. It happened in mid-July, meaning some products may change (for example, if there's been a sequel launched since), but the low prices should match come Prime Day 2020.
Amazon Prime £79.99 £59.99 per year
This was perfect for anyone not already signed up to Prime as it was the cheapest price we'd seen since a few weeks after Prime Day the year before- so we were glad Amazon decided to run the promotion before Prime Day this time. Don't forget, you need to be a Prime member to buy any of the Amazon Prime Day deals. A 30-day free trial was (and still is) available as an alternative option too.
Amazon Echo Dot: £49.99 £22 at Amazon
The Echo Dot gets regular discounts throughout the year, more so than any other Amazon device. £29.99 is the most regular offer (so never pay more than this), but Amazon dropped it to £24.99 the week before Prime Day, then knocked a further £3 off the price during the official 48-hour event, arguably due to rival UK retailers also knocking the price down to £25. £22 was the cheapest price Amazon has ever sold the Echo Dot for.
Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote: £39.99 £19.99 at Amazon
As you can imagine at this price, this Fire Stick sold by the truck load (more like a fleet of truck loads actually). This streaming stick adds a bunch of streaming apps to your smart TV, most notably Amazon Prime Video and comes with an Alexa-voice remote too.
Kindle Paperwhite | £119.99 £79.99 at Amazon
A fantastic price that only seems to come around on the Paperwhite for Prime Day. We see it drop under the £119 RRP quite often, so we'd at least hold on for a sub-£100 offer the rest of the year too.
Amazon Echo Show 5: £79.99 £49.99 at Amazon
Another Amazon device released very close to Prime Day and we suspected this would get a better deal than the launch price and £20 was a fantastic drop. This small screen-enabled smart speaker is significantly cheaper than the even smaller Echo Spot too, so even at RRP we thought it was a better deal.
Amazon Fire 7: £49.99 £29.99 at Amazon
Ok, at £30, you know you're not getting an iPad or even Samsung level of quality. But £30 for a tablet for basic web browsing and media playback was seriously tempting. The larger versions with a HD screen were also heavily discounted too, but this all-time low price really caught our eye. Apple charges more than that for official iPad cases.
Hisense 50-Inch 4K UHD HDR Smart TV: £449.99 £294 at Amazon
Lightning deals like this were fantastic value if you could catch them in time. A 50-inch 4K TV for under £300 and Hisense make decent ones on a budget too, so this is far better quality than some no-name tat you'd see for this price in the mad middle aisles of Lidl.
iPad Air £479 £459 at Amazon
The newest iPad Air is packed with technical grunt, so much so it's much closer to the spec of an iPad Pro than the smaller models but with a pricetag that wouldn't make you dizzy when you saw it smash onto your bank statement at the end of the month.
PS4 Slim | 3 games | £219.99 at Amazon
Prime Day and gaming bundles have been disappointing for a few years now in all honesty, so our expectations were low and we were not particularly impressed with this sale either. Console prices have been stuck in a rut in the UK for a few years now with single-game bundles hovering between £220-£250 throughout the year.
Huawei Matebook D 15.6-inch Intel Core i3 8GB RAM £659.99 £399.99 at Amazon
Laptops had a great Prime Day once again. Everything from dirt cheap Chromebooks, mid-range gaming-ready laptops like this and super powerful ultrabooks like the XPS 13 were all on offer. It wasn't just Amazon either, Dell had a massive 'Black Friday in July' event at the same time.
Apple iPhone XR (64GB): £749 £639 at Amazon
For years, Prime Day mobile phone deals have been limited to budget handsets. Not in 2019 though, we saw a selection of Apple and Samsung's finest get excellent deals on SIM-free handsets.
Fitbit Versa – Black: £162.89 £139 at Amazon
Fitbit and Prime Day have had a romance going on for a while now and this time was no different. The Fitbit Versa lead the way, although it had strong competition from its other models along with rival brands like Garmin and TicWatch.
Beats Solo3 wireless headphones: £209.95 £142.99 at Amazon
Wireless headphones are big business nowadays and Beats has needed to up its game for a while as the competition in the market is heating up and you can often get better for less than the full-priced Beats headphones. A £70 discount on one of its best models with a massive 40-hour battery life, Siri voice control and comfort-cushioned earpieces made it one of the best audio deals of the day though.
Anker Wireless Earbuds £54.99 £37.99 at Amazon
While it was great to see top of the line in-ear wireless headphones get big discounts on Prime Day, we were super pleased to see budget buyers catered for too with these Anker Soundcore Liberty Neo wireless earbuds on Amazon Prime Day.
Philips Hue Bayonet Starter Kit: £118 £69.99 at Amazon
Oh Philips Hue. So desirable and pretty, but generally oh so ridiculously priced for most of the year. Prime Day and Christmas shopping times seem to be solid shouts for better deals though and well worth waiting for when prices stay glued to their RRPs at other times.
Eufy BoostIQ RoboVac 30C: £289.99 £178.99 at Amazon
Robot vacuum cleaners are increasingly popular and they're not all priced around £500 any more. We saw a few brands, including the highly-respected iRobot Roomba series, get big discounts, but this Eufy model really caught our eye for well under £200. Can't afford a Roomba? A Eufy is well worth a look instead.
Instant Pot Duo V2 7-in-1 Electric Pressure Cooker: £169.99 £69.99 at Amazon
Instant Pots are huge over in the States, but it hasn't released as many models over here yet. So we were super surprised to see this massive reduction - and Instant Pots are great.
Bosch PSB 1800 LI-2 Cordless Combi Drill: £104.99 £49.99
Bosch always seems to have something special saved for Prime Day and this year's sale was no different as this cordless drills certainly appealed to our tech sensibilities. What do you mean we don't need it?!
23andMe DNA test kit: £149 £72.79 at Amazon
One of the biggest names in DNA testing kits had a half-price deal on for Amazon Prime Day. We'd never seen a price this low on the popular service that includes over 125 reports on health, wellness, ancestry and more.
Google Home Mini £49 £24 at Currys
If you fancied going rogue and joining team Google's smart speaker party instead of team Alexa, Prime Day was a fantastic time to do so. Google always aggressively price-matches against the similar Echo speakers. You wouldn't find these deals at Amazon though, but other electronics stores like John Lewis, Currys, AO and Argos stepped up this time.
What did Amazon's rivals do on Prime Day?
Currys kicked of its 'Black Tag' event before Prime Day and it was still going for a few days afterwards too. Out of all the other stores, we'd probably say Currys gave Amazon the biggest fight for TVs, laptops and gadgets. Currys' wide selection of home white goods beat out Amazon too, although Amazon has never really focused on those as much.
John Lewis deals were very popular for Google Home products (not sold on Amazon) and while it was generally price-matching rivals rather than coming up with its own deals, we were happy to send you its way due to most items coming with a free minimum two-year warranty at no extra cost.
Having to pay for delivery on items under £50 was a bit off-putting though on cheaper items and shows a key area where John Lewis are lagging behind the times a little on the UK online retailscape.
So much shopping is done on mobile now either via a browser, or by using a retailer's own app. According to AppsFlyer (as reported by PerformanceIn), the top 100 retail apps took a bit of a beating during Prime Day, not only were new installs down, 53% of them had a decrease of in-app purchases.
And seeing as Amazon's app got through the sale without freezing all the time like it did last year, it's not great news for rival apps.
Overall, more people shopped via mobile at Amazon than ever before on Prime Day. Gone are the days when people tended to browse more on mobile, then fire up the laptop when they got home to actually finish the transaction. And to be fair, on Prime Day, you can't really afford to wait that long due to the risk of deals selling out.
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