Go ask Alexa, she knows about early Prime Day deals

Users of the Amazon Alexa voice assistant can start their Prime Day shopping a couple of days early.

Amazon’s annual Prime Day sales extravaganza officially kicks off Tuesday, Oct. 13. However, starting Sunday, Oct. 11, consumers can also ask an Alexa-enabled Amazon Echo smart speaker device “Alexa, what are my Prime Day deals?” to get early access to select deals. Although only members of the Amazon Prime paid membership program can take part in Prime Day deals, anyone can sign up for a free 30-day trial membership and participate in the event.

In addition, Prime members will have access to early deals on select Amazon devices starting Monday, Oct. 12. Through October 12, Amazon is offering a $10 credit to use on Prime Day to members who spend $10 on items sold by select small businesses in its store.

During Prime Day, Amazon says it will offer more than 1 million deals, including limited-time “lightning deals” with added savings on top-tier brands and products. Amazon is providing a preview of some of the discounts which will be available during the event.

In 2019, Amazon said that Prime Day was once again the largest shopping event in its history, with more than one million deals exclusively for Prime members. Over the two days of Prime Day (July 15-16, 2019), sales surpassed the previous Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. 2019 was the first year Amazon held Prime Day over 48 hours.

The online giant, as its custom, did not release an actual sales figure for the 2019 event, only product highlights. It said Prime members purchased more than 175 million items throughout the event. Prime Day was also the biggest event ever for Amazon devices, when comparing two-day periods. According to Amazon, small businesses sold more than $2 billion worth of merchandise on its platform during Prime Day 2019.