Amazon’s annual fall Prime Big Deal Days event (October 7 and 8) returned to excite Prime members for the holiday shopping season. Like last year, we reviewed 116 brands and retailers to see what they offered shoppers.
Some of our key findings include:
66 brands we reviewed held concurrent special events. That’s about the same number as the October 2024 event — but 10 fewer brands than this past July’s 96-hour Prime Day event. Most brands offered some form of discount, and 14 brands leaned into a sitewide sale for shoppers. Two retailers offered no discount but instead offered extra points per purchase for loyalty account holders. Just seven brands offered free shipping exclusively for the sale period.
Branded sales events competed with the “Prime” push. Nine retailers did their own events, including Macy’s Star Deals Week and Target Circle Week. Last October, 16 brands used “Prime” in their promotional site content, but this year, that dropped to three. As brands continue to focus on their own member and loyalty programs, we’ll continue to see competing branded sales events. A few brands — including Adidas — featured no event on their own sites but instead encouraged shoppers to shop directly from the Prime sale on Amazon.
Free shipping offers cooled while alternatives heated up. Free shipping offers without any minimum-purchase caveats declined as a perk for non-member shoppers. Instead, brands looked to alternative fulfillment options. For example, five retailers did not offer free shipping but instead marketed “buy online, pick up in store,” curbside pickup, and ship-to-store options as fast, free options. Ray-Ban offered customers “responsible shipping,” explaining that it partnered with “responsible” logistics partners to reduce carbon emissions for online orders.
Brands were not quite ready to push the “holiday” theme. Only two brands we reviewed had some sort of holiday messaging on their home pages. Eleven retailers chose to keep their marketing more seasonal: “Fall Flash Sale,” “Fall Savings,” and even Best Buy’s “Techtober.”
To see our prior-year Prime Big Deal Days key findings, please see our analyses from 2023 and 2024.
With end-of-year holiday shopping officially underway, stay tuned for more holiday coverage and insights as part of Forrester’s 2025 holiday prep series. Forrester clients who would like to discuss the 2025 holiday season and your business: Please schedule an inquiry or guidance session with us!
(coauthored with Senior Research Associate Delilah Gonzalez)
