Amazon Prime Day 2017: When is it; what’s on sale?

Amazon is also introducing some deals starting today, in anticipation of Prime Day.

In addition to the extra shopping time, this year’s Prime Day has expanded to 13 countries. Those deals will start at 7 p.m. on July 10, two hours before everything else kicks off.

Amazon created Prime Day in 2015 out of the blue, attempting to bolster sales during the lull of summer with a manufactured event devoted to limited-time, rapid-fire deals.

How do you shop the sale? No worries. You can sign up for a free 30 day trial to see what all the fuss is about. You can see what movies and shows you would have access to with a membership here. Once they are, shoppers can join a waiting list to be notified if additional units become available.

Of course, none of this happens without a Prime membership.

Members can stream 2 million songs ad-free with Amazon Music.

What will be on sale? The sale is considered to be at par with the Black Friday Sale and Cyber Monday sales held in many western countries and has even broken records in many countries.

Televisions will be a popular buy as in the past, according to the company. Deals will be organized into more than 20 of their “most-shopped-for themes”, Alexa-specific exclusive deals will be offered, preview deals in the Amazon app, and special deals on Amazon Fire TV Edition.

What deals should you expect?

This, perhaps, should come as little surprise given that Amazon’s annual Prime subscription service landed in India last July followed by China a few months later. Also beginning Thursday, Amazon will offer up to 40% off of a Kindle Unlimited membership – which offers access to more than a million book titles that can be read on any smart device.

The current rise of middle-class consumers in China, who now demonstrate much more sophisticated and mature consumption habits, might offer a great opportunity for Amazon to catch up to some major domestic players like Alibaba and JD.com and improve its relevance in this huge market. If someone is paying $100 a year for a membership that gives them all kinds of exclusive perks, including free speedy deliveries on nearly any item, they’re more likely to do all their shopping through that service.

This year, the deals will be organized across more than 20 of the most-shopped-for themes right from pet lovers to gardeners and techies to artists, with almost 40% of the lightning deals coming from small businesses and entrepreneurs. In fact, Amazon will be offering some exclusive deals to people using their Alexa-enabled devices like the Amazon Echo or Echo Dot.