Amazon is not letting Walmart and Target get a head start on Christmas
Amazon.com has joined the growing ranks of retail stores and sites running major sales promotions before Halloween in an effort to capture a greater share of the dollars that Americans will spend on Christmas gifts this year. Do early sales promotions suggest a nervousness on the part of retailers about the 2022 holiday season?
Amazon.com has joined the growing ranks of retail stores and sites running major sales promotions before Halloween in an effort to capture a greater share of the dollars that Americans will spend on Christmas gifts this year.
Prime Early Access, as Amazon calls the promotion, will be exclusive to those holding Prime memberships. The event will run on Oct. 11 and 12 and promises members “hundreds of thousands of deals.”
Prime members, as with past Prime Day and holiday sales events, will not have to wait until the Early Access sales to score deals. The site has already launched a digital storefront where current Prime members or those taking advantage of a free 30-day trial can look for savings on items of interest.
Amazon has initiated a Top 100 list of popular items and will offer special deals on items from the list throughout the Early Access event. The retailing and technology giant said that it will offer Prime members “deep savings” across in-demand categories such as apparel, consumer electronics (including its own devices), home and kitchen, pets and toys.
Amazon will face plenty of rivals as it seeks to win the holiday sales competition.
Walmart claims to have made “significant price investments in key categories” with “thousands more Rollbacks this holiday” on top gifts in key categories including beauty, consumer electronics, home and toys. The retailer, which is kicking off its holiday promotions on Oct. 1, has added three “no concerns” return options, including a January 31 cutoff for returns as well as curbside returns and return pick-up of returns at the homes of Walmart+ members.
Target’s Deal Days promotion, billed as its biggest ever, will run between Oct. 6 and 8 with “hundreds of thousands of incredible deals” across categories. The chain is running a price match guarantee from Oct. 6. through Dec. 24.
Mark Mathews, vice president for research, development and industry analysis for the National Retail Federation, expects consumers to react positively to all the early holiday deals.
“It is absolutely good news for consumers,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Now all of a sudden we are almost back to pre-pandemic times when you have too much of this, too much of that so you have to discount.”
- Introducing Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale — A New Holiday Shopping Event for Members to Save Big October 11 and October 12 – Amazon.com
- Did Walmart just guarantee it will be the easiest place to shop for Christmas? – RetailWire
- Did Target just move Black Friday up to October 7? – RetailWire
- A second Prime sale shows Amazon is nervous about the economy too – Los Angeles Times