What is Amazon Prime Day 2020? What to Know, and How GQ Can Help
What is Amazon Prime Day 2020?
It's a roughly 30-hour window in which Amazon offers a deluge of deals for Amazon Prime members, causing the Internet to trip over itself. Products from seemingly every corner of Amazon.com—from tech to furniture to, yes, everything Alexa—will go on sale throughout the day. Some of them you’ll actually want. Some will sell out before you can get them. It can be overwhelming. Looking to refresh your wardrobe? Amazon’s a bit of a menswear desert, but we saw a lot more style-editor-approved pieces on sale last year than we expected. Want a new toothbrush or razor? Prime Day’s usually a great time to buy new grooming gear. And yes, of course, if you’ve been waiting to pull the trigger on new speakers or a smart home starter kit, Prime Day will be big. So: What is Amazon Prime Day 2020? It's the e-retail extravaganza we all love to hate. It's a lot of mediocre deals you can miss and a few very excellent deals good enough to warrant your attention.
When is Prime Day?
Amazon Prime Day is usually in July, smack dab in the summer lull of big hallmark deal events. The company decided to push it back this year (wonder why!) but hasn't exactly said by how much. This is pretty typical, even when it was an event that basically fell in the same two-week span, Amazon was always reticent to confirm specific dates until a couple of weeks before it happened. Here's what we know at this point: Prime Day has been reportedly scheduled for sometime in October. CNET specifically reported that Prime Day will begin on Tuesday, October 13th this year, but Amazon has not confirmed that date.
Why does everyone want me to care about Prime Day?
This is basically Amazon's Black Friday, except Black Friday is also Amazon's Black Friday, so Prime Day is like a second, usually warmer Black Friday that happens on a Tuesday and also part of a Wednesday. It remains to be seen how the new timing (only a month and a half out from Cyber Week!) will affect the deal pricing during Prime Day. But we're pretty confident that what was true about Prime Day last year will still hold. There will probably be a few once-in-a-blue-moon deals on offer—some of which might evaporate almost as fast as you can click "add to cart.” If you're a planner, you could even use this as an opportunity to get holiday gifting done even earlier than usual. But mostly you should care because, if you’ve got a list of things you’ve been wanting to pick up, particularly in the tech and gadget arena, you likely won’t see better prices on Amazon.
How can I, a popular and busy person, stay abreast of all the crucial Prime Day info and deals?
You could madly refresh the Amazon homepage for 36 consecutive hours. Or you could get the drop on Prime Day details as they pop up in real time—particularly on GQ-vetted-and-approved product picks—by following our coverage here and subscribing to GQ's Recommends newsletter. You’ll get a few emails throughout the Amazon Prime Day sale highlighting the most brain-busting deals across tech, kitchen gear, grooming, menswear, home goods, and beyond that GQ’s editors feverishly filter from the Prime Day fire hose of mediocre deals.
Is Prime Day a mildly craven capitalistic construct determined to invoke a Pavlovian FOMO response rooted in Western materialism?
Yes, sure, of course! But also, you probably need a new portable battery for your phone and you're not a Franciscan monk. Besides, if you already have an Amazon Prime account, then Prime Day is, like, 93 percent of the perks. (The other seven percent is the ability to rewatch of Jonathan Majors' stellar performance in The Last Black Man in San Francisco. ) If you're not currently a Prime subscriber, Prime Day is maybe the smartest time to test-drive a free 30-day trial so you can sneak inside the doors.
This Prime Day sounds truly life-giving. But what should I do until it starts?
So much! Read a book (or 80)! Dye your hair neon! If you're dead set on shopping, refresh your wardrobe for the fall or check out some editor-vetted new arrivals at GQ Recommends. Did we mention we have a newsletter?
In the meantime...
Originally Appeared on GQ
