Seeing ads for an Amazon Prime Day has probably caused people to double check their calendar, yet for the third year in a row, Amazon has run a sale in October. Amazon Prime Big Deal Days was a two-day sales event that just wrapped up, although many deals are still live in an unusual twist. The sale is meant as a precursor to more bombastic Black Friday deals and could be used as a litmus test to determine how lucrative the end of November sale will be.

Amazon first ran an October sale back in 2021 when they moved their traditional summertime Prime Day due to supply chain concerns. In 2022 Prime Day returned to its normal slot and they held a Prime Early Access sale in early October. This year’s October event has gone under the label of Prime Big Deal Days, and it operated in a similar manner to the normal Prime Day and it seems likely that Amazon will make these October deals an annual event. The two-day sale offered discounts on a range of products with new deals popping up every hour and a focus on Amazon branded devices.

As a cursory overview, the deals did not seem as robust as the more traditional Prime Day and Black Friday sales. This is in line with what we saw in 2022 and it makes sense that Amazon and third-party vendors would want to hold back the largest discounts for the massive Black Friday event that is only a month and a half away. Amazon did not release any official sales numbers, yet they claimed that this year outpaced 2022’s October event and 50 million more items from third-party sellers this year. Numerator has determined that the average spend per order was $55.86 which is higher than last October though lower than July’s Prime Day. Only 28% of shoppers say they used the sale to shop for holiday gifts, which is surprising given the time of the year; however, they could be holding out for next month. Many of the same categories, like apparel and home goods, were top sellers again, with toys & games seeing a 4% uptick.

There is a lot riding on this year’s Black Friday sale, and it makes sense that Amazon is seeking to test the waters. Notably, other retailers like Target and Walmart did not launch their own sale to coincide with Amazon’s event and appear to be holding back for Black Friday. The economic and spending indexes were all down for October, yet the expected November sales spike should still be higher than last year. It has been a turbulent year with multiple economic and spending drops, meaning that a lot of hope is residing in next month’s Black Friday sale.