Amazon to get early start on Cyber Monday

Amazon is not waiting until Monday to launch its Cyber Monday sales event.

The e-tail giant, which kicks off a 48-hour Black Friday promotion on Thursday, Nov. 24 (Thanksgiving Day) and running through Friday, Nov. 25 and two early holiday sales events in October (see more below), is wasting no time in launching its next holiday sale. Amazon is offering a Cyber Monday weekend event, with online discounts across top categories from Saturday, Nov. 26, through Monday, Nov. 28.

Customers can check back for surprise deals dropping every 30 minutes during select periods of the three-day event. In addition, Amazon will offer exclusive curated collections from influencers and experts including Remi Bader, Dixie D’Amelio, Storm Reid, and Vinnie Hacker. A Small Business Badge will identify products and deals from small businesses, including from Black-owned, woman-owned, and military family-owned brands, as well as independent artisans.

For more details on specific Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts and deals, click here.

Amazon offers holiday Prime Day, beauty promotions

Amazon has not been waiting for the arrival of Thanksgiving to launch its 2022 holiday promotional efforts.

One major Amazon holiday initiative was the recent debut of the Prime Early Access Sale, a new two-day global shopping event exclusive to Prime members, which ran Tuesday, Oct. 11 through Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022. Prime Early Access Sale offered Prime members hundreds of thousands of deals.

While Numerator data shows the Prime Early Access sale drove a sales increase from an average benchmark Amazon two-day period, metrics were down from July Prime Day. 2022 marks the first year that Amazon essentially hosted two full-blown versions of its members-only Prime Day promotion.

In addition, Amazon hosted its second annual “Holiday Beauty Haul” promotion from Monday, Oct. 24 – Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022. The event featured more than 1,000 deals from national beauty brands. As part of the event, Amazon hosted “Live Festival” livestream shopping promotions, where customers could live chat with celebrity beauty influencers and shop the featured products through a real-time carousel on the Amazon Live platform.

Walmart, Target get jump start on holidays

“Meanwhile, numerous other Tier I retailers have also begun their holiday promotions. Most notably, chief Amazon rival Walmart started its third annual “Black Friday Deals for Days” promotion on Monday, Nov. 7 (with early access for members of the Walmart+ paid membership program).

In addition, Target got an early start to the holiday season with its annual Target Deal Days promotion at the beginning of October.