Amazon has long changed the game when it comes to having sales events, almost forcing the big retailers like Target and Walmart (among others) to have competing deal days within weeks of each other. Amazon has been promoting Prime Big Deal Days pretty heavily and consumers have come to expect the sale during the year as a way to boost sales during the year rather than waiting until the biggest shopping day of years past, Black Friday.

This year, Amazon and Walmart are similar in how to get the deal on the sale items. If you are familiar with Amazon’s “Lightning Deals”, Walmart is doing an event that started before October 10th and goes for an entire week called “Flash Deals”. Same concept, but different retailers, attempting to draw consumers in to make their purchases prior to Amazon’s promotions.

Walmart’s week of “Flash Deals” has already started, and has the same concept as Amazon’s “Lightning Deals”. Amazon’s “Flash Deals” in a way but branded as “Lightening Deals” has been a part of Amazon’s promotional strategy, where there are certain products with really steep discounts and there is a countdown to how much longer the deal is valid. Typically the deals are only for a few hours unless they sell out of their stock of the Lightning Deal and the waitlist opens. Once the Lightning Deal is over, the product will still be available but it will be at regular price.

Target held their discount event from October 1-7, potentially drawing in those savings-savvy shoppers to see while on their Target run. The sales at Target seem to be more in-store focused with heavy promotion using the percentage off type sales.

Buy or Wait?

Sometimes you may find things on Amazon that are on sale but in reality, do not give much savings when listed at full price. It’s frustrating to see the price drop after a sale that was meant to be a discount because it is difficult to track price changes over time for the same product to correctly confirm how much money is actually being saved. If you love data or just want to see how much prices have changed over time there are a number Amazon price trackers (many with browser extensions) that you can use all year round.

For example, let’s say you are looking for laptops and see that one is on sale. You can take the link of the product on Amazon and plug it into the search box, resulting in a historical timeline of the price. The site can be used all year round, so if you are into finding the best price of anything anywhere, this site can be a game changer for you.

Get ahead of the crowds

There are hundreds of deals out there beyond Amazon at other retailers. Having these major sales events in October makes it difficult to have another giant sale a month later, so there is no certainty on which sales are going to be better. If you are considering getting a head start on Christmas gifts so that you don’t have to go broke in December buying everything everywhere all at once, this week may be the time to get it all over with.