Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days Kick Off Early Tuesday: Here’s Everything You Need to Know

If you want to get a head start on holiday shopping this season, set your alarms and make sure your wifi is working for Amazon's fall sales event, Prime Big Deal Days, which kicks off at 3 a.m. ET on Tuesday.

Amazon's launching its holiday sales event weeks ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday in hopes of enticing its more than 200 million members start their holiday shopping earlier. Adobe Analytics, which tracks digital sales, estimates that October's Prime Day event will bring in $8.1 Billion in sales, up 6.1% from last year.

At Amazon’s Prime event this summer, the company sold a record $12.7 billion in merchandise, up from its record of $11.9 billion the year before. 

How Does Prime Deal Days Work?

You have to have a Prime membership to shop the deals. Amazon offers free 30-day trial, but it costs $14.99 a month or $139 a year if you don't cancel before the 30 days are up.

Different deals will drop as often as every 5 minutes throughout the two-day sales event. You can bookmark Amazon's deal page here to check it out. Hot deals will likely sell out fast and new ones will be posted.

Some of the deals are invite-only, meaning you have to request an invite, like for the Citizen men's promaster dive watch, which is on sale for $199.99 from $475. You'll receive an email if you're chosen and have until the end of the sales event to purchase.

It starts at 3 a.m. ET on Tuesday and runs through Wednesday.

What's on Sale?

The world's second-largest retailer, behind Walmart, is offering steep discounts on electronics, household goods and clothing, including:

Which Countries Are Participating?

Target, Walmart and Best Run Dueling Sales

In a bid to front-run Amazon's sale, Target ran a week of exclusive deals to its Target Circle customers that ended Saturday.

Walmart is running its own three-day sales event that started Monday and runs through Wednesday, with up to 60% on select merchandise.  

Best Buy is similarly discounting some of its most popular items with exclusive deals through the end of this month for My Best Buy Plus and Total members.