Amazon Prime Day 2019: When Is It? What Are the Best Deals?

Black Friday is still more than five months away, but the summer version of that shopping free-for-all is just a few weeks away.

Prime Day 2019 will be held on July 15-16, extending the annual affair to a multi-day event. (Since 2015, Amazon has held its Prime Day sale in early July.)

Prime Day 2019 has a lot to live up to. Last year’s event set a new sales record for the company, with consumers purchasing over 100 million products. (Analysts estimated total sales topped $4 billion.) Sales, even when adjusted for the 36 hour period, surpassed Cyber Monday, Black Friday and 2017’s Prime Day (which, itself, improved upon the 2016 event by 60%).

So what can we expect in 2019?

When is Prime Day 2019?

Amazon, on Tuesday, confirmed the rumors, that Prime Day 2019 will be a two-day event, running July 15-16. The company says this will be its biggest yet, with over 1 million deals globally.

Are Prime Day deals better than Black Friday?

Actually, yes.

That’s not true for all of the bargains, of course, but a 2018 price comparison study of the 2017 deals by BestBlackFriday.com found 76% of the deals on Prime Day were better than Black Friday. Roughly 70% of the 2018 deals were better than Black Friday prices.

What are the best Prime Day deals?

Amazon discounts a wide swath of items over the course of Prime Day, but the best deals are usually found on its own products. If you’re thinking about buying a Kindle, Echo, Echo Dot, Fire TV, Ring Doorbell or Fire Tablet, try to hold off until mid-July. Some deals are already starting, though. The retailer is reducing the price of a Toshiba HD 43-inch Fire TV Edition Smart TV, by $120 to $179.99, through June 30 or while supplies last.

You can also expect to find deals in Whole Foods stores. Last year, Prime members who spent $10 or more at the grocery store got a $10 Amazon Prime Day credit.

Is Amazon the only retailer offering deals on Prime Day?

While Prime Day is an Amazon-exclusive event, competitors are happy to ride the company’s coattails with specials of their own, to lure in people who are already online and looking to spend money. Target, last year, said one of the days that were spanned by Prime Day was “the highest single day of traffic and sales of 2018” on its Website.

Why is Prime Day in July?

The dog days of summer generally aren’t a busy time for retailers. Global payments provider Payoneer says retailers saw an average sales drop of 4% around July 2018.

Amazon decided to do something about that. And it worked better than the company could have hoped for, with sales increasing 30% on both Prime Day and the following month.