Media outlets are reporting the the first Prime Day event of 2026 will arrive earlier than expected:
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I saw this as well. Pricing barriers (time restrictions) for Prime Day could now be hit by Spring Big Sale if this occurs - so it would be nice to know if itās true, but Amazon will never tell.
Could be Amazonās master plan to force sellers to lower prices further if they want in on the big event, because they also participated in the smaller one.
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Hopefully they do it during my birthday week so I can take off when my sales tankā¦
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There ā¦ we fixed it for you ā¦
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Prime Days have been in June only one other time, in 2021.
My guess is that in 2025 July Prime Days out-performed Q4ās Novemberās BFCM week and/or the odd October Prime whatever-it-wasāin whatever way is meaningful to Amazon but not necessarily obvious to onlookersāso they are moving Prime Days back to test if it was merely event proximity or sales oversaturation, versus an actual consumer shopping shift.
Or maybe Amazon just likes June better
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Or maybe a July Prime Day and Back to School sales kind of collide so they are putting a little space between them.
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Amazon is probably taking a clue from grocery stores (Whole Foods?) and plan to have some special sale EVERY WEEK to get people onto the site for even more promoted products that they donāt needā¦
Oh, and AD REVENUE from people that apparently have more than enough money to spend on ads.
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My guess is itās all about the stock price. They are probably anticipating a weak Q2 and want to bolster it so they can put off the inevitable 3 monthsā¦ (Bad Earnings Call).
Thatās my guess, and since I spent 20 years in big-corporate-retail, Iām probably correctā¦
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Interesting, and somewhat relatedā¦
So Amazon is not giving 3P sellers the option to participate in the āBig Spring Saleā.
In years past, and with every Amazon āEventā - Prime Exclusive Discounts would get the listing a badge. Like āBig Spring Dealā or whatever.
Not this year. Itās reserved for Amazon only, with the exception of Best Deals or Lightning Deals.
Weird.
Instead, they are pushing sellers to move āOverstockā through outlet deals.
Again, Weirdā¦
Normally the things Amazon does makes some sense to me. Not this time. I see ad after ad on TV - ā60% of Amazon sales come from independent sellersā.
Amazon is pretty much excluding 3P sellers from participating. Sure, you can set up PEDs for the event, but it looks like nothing special to the consumer.
If you are selling on the EU marketplace, you can set up PEDs and get a badge for the spring sale. I donāt get it. Anyone get this move?
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Yepper, at least for US-domiciled sellers, if the presently-available evidence Iāve thus far seen on the topic is to be believed; complaints about being locked out from submitting various deal types have ramped up rather sharply, in a variety of seller-discussion venues, since the 031626 News Headline āClear excess inventory with Big Spring Sale 2026ā (link, Seller Central).
Itās of course possible that Amazon is still ironing out various kinks, and we of course are unlikely to know for sure for some time, but I think that a recent change made to the SHCās āmainā published-policy page āAmazon Dealsā (link) may well offer a āreading-between-the-linesā glimpse into exactly which deep-pocketed & notoriously-spendthrift sellers Amazon intends to target this year. (n.b. - there currently exist two same-titled versions of that page, as was mentioned in this 031726 SAS post [link], where Iāve reproduced the Message Body of a badly-bollixed Amazon-created Case ID, dispatched @ 5:42 AM EDT on St. Paddyās Day by an SAS Core operative using [email protected] as a Send-From & Reply-To email address, and which would seem to obviously be part & parcel of this initiative)
For the past few years, the āSeller eligibilityā section of that āmainā SHC page reflected just what it did the last time I recorded it on 120825:
As of 031626, that sentence has been altered to this:
I think weāve seen this movie before.
Donāt recall it winning an Oscar.
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Ah, the JoAnnās method 
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Yes, but according to my NSFE banner there is STILL TIME ā TODAY!!
Oh, wait, I guess notā¦ Damned calendarā¦
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SAS manager confirmed a late June Prime Day(s) earlier today on the phone.
No mention of how long it will be. Assume 4 days, but you never know.
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I find it interesting that that banner disappeared at about the same time this last-minute 032326 News Headline appeared, and that the typical āJoin this discussion in Seller Forumsā link it includes led to a āDiscussion not availableā 404 page error:
https: //sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-news/articles/QVRWUERLSUtYMERFUiNHNU5TVVNMQkFXNVhEQjlW
It remains to be seen whether or not the inclusion of an āexternalā embedded link for the SHCās āPrice Discount Feeā (link, Seller Central, non-external & āsimplifiedā) - a published-policy page which has been modified greatly, in light of 2026 changes, since I last archived it 111925 - plays any role in this latest example of Amazon rolling things out in this fashion:
or, maybe, even in this one:
Still, Iām fairly certain that I might know where the smart money will fall on that wager.
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