Black Friday comes to Amazon – starting on Thanksgiving

Amazon has at least one more major holiday promotion coming up.

The e-tail giant, which ran two early holiday sales events in October (see more below), is kicking off a 48-hour online Black Friday promotion on Thursday, Nov. 24 (Thanksgiving Day) and running through Friday, Nov. 25. Customers will be able to save on items across categories including toys, electronics, fashion, beauty, and Amazon devices, on the Amazon e-commerce site and shopping app, or by asking, “Alexa, what are my deals?”

In addition, surprise deals will drop every 30 minutes during select periods throughout the two-day event. Early Black Friday discounts on select products begin Monday, Nov. 14.

As part of the promotion, Amazon is providing product recommendations from influencers including Oprah Winfrey and Charli D’Amelio. The retailer is also providing targeted holiday gift guides for categories such as small business, home, fashion, electronics, and the holiday toy list; as well as price-specific lists such as “electronics under $100.”

Other elements of the Amazon Black Friday sales event and holiday season promotional strategy include:

• From Black Friday through Cyber Monday (Nov. 28), Amazon customers will have access to Lightning Deals (short-term promotions with limited discounts on an item) and promotional credit offers by purchasing gift cards from brands including Nordstrom and Uber. With a qualifying purchase, customers will receive 20% instant savings or up to $15 in Amazon promotional credit.
• During the 2022 holiday season, eligible members of the Amazon Prime paid membership program can get 50% off purchases, saving up to $20 that can be spent over one or multiple transactions, when paying with Chase Ultimate Rewards November 24 -28 on Amazon.com.
• Prime members in the U.S. signed up for the existing free, one-year Grubhub+ membership trial can get $10 off a Grubhub order over $25 using the code GiveMe10.
• Prime members can subscribe to receive deal alert notifications related to their recent Amazon searches and recently viewed items. Once the Black Friday event begins, members will receive push notifications on any available deals.
• From Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, Prime members will save 25% when they spend $50 on select everyday essentials from Amazon brands’ “Stock Up & Save” program.

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.

Click here for a list of deals that will be available during the Amazon Black Friday event.