Technology
Amazon Black Friday deals start early
An Amazon employee dressed as Santa drives around an Amazon warehouse.AP/Mark Humphrey
- Amazon has revealed its “early Black Friday deals” page a day earlier than last year.
- This year, it also comes with a slew of gift guides, Christmas trees, and the holiday classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” on Prime Video.
- Alexa device owners can even ask the voice assistant for help cooking their turkey.
Amazon is getting into the holiday spirit.
The company has launched its “early Black Friday deals” page in the lead-up to the biggest shopping day of the year. It’s three weeks early, so don’t expect the deep discounts that Amazon will have on the big day itself. Instead, the deals page will be more of a rebranded section akin to Amazon’s typical Daily Deals.
The Black Friday deals include an iRobot Roomba for 20% off, a Sorry! board game for 32% off, and a Furreal Munchin’ Rex toy for 22% off.
As of 11:05 a.m. EST, a message told shoppers searching the deals that the page was “experiencing heavy traffic.”
Amazon launched a similar “Countdown to Black Friday” page last year.
Read more: More people are going to be shopping on their phones under the Thanksgiving dinner table this year
Amazon has also come up with more gift guides than ever, including not only toys but electronics, kitchen, home, and fashion items. There are also more niche lists not assigned to a single category, including stocking stuffers, “unique” gifts, white elephant gifts, gifts under $20, and more.
Amazon is also shipping and selling Christmas trees for the first time this year, including a range of shapes and sizes.
On the digital-content front, Prime Video is now offering holiday classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” to stream. Alexa device owners can call up Butterball’s famous Turkey Talk Line via a skill shoppers can enable.
Amazon is preparing to take the lion’s share of online shopping again this season.
Most of this year’s sales growth is likely to come from online purchases. Forrester Research is predicting 14% sales growth online, but only 1.7% growth in stores. Analysts estimated that Amazon took nearly half of all online retail sales in 2017, and that it will account for even more this year.
Forrester estimates that online holiday sales will account for more than 32% of all online sales for the year.
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