Amazon’s second Prime sales event of the year is here, marking the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season. Other retailers are offering deals too.

Prime’s Big Deal Days, for Amazon Prime members, is on Tuesday and Wednesday. The company says it will be offering 「millions of deals」 on popular holiday purchases, as well as day-to-day essentials consumers may want to stock up on. Sales will range anywhere from 20% to 65% off.

Target’s Circle Week runs from Sunday through Oct. 11. Members of Target Circle will receive discounts of up to 50% across various categories of goods.

Walmart, taking a different approach, is making its Walmart Deals, its sales event, available to all shoppers from Tuesday through Oct. 12. Walmart+ members will have early access starting on Monday.

All those efforts to garner sales make this month an important test for consumer demand ahead of the holidays.

「October has become a critical starting point for holiday prep, when families pick up everyday essentials, shop for décor and make small splurges that set the tone for the season,」 Walmart said in a press release.

Amazon kicked off the trend in 2020, when it shifted its typical July sales event to October in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It made the October sales a mainstay, in addition to the July event, in 2022. Other retailers quickly followed suit.

With inflation, high interest rates, and economic uncertainty weighing heavy on Americans’ minds, sales events like Prime Deal Days have been resonating well.

「We definitely see some consumers shopping early because they think that prices could be higher, but we also see a lot of people waiting for sales,」 said Mark Mathews, chief economist for the National Retail Federation, a retail trade group.

The recent back-to-school season is proof of that, Mathews said, with many people taking advantage of the July Prime Day and competing sales to stock up on school supplies. U.S. retailers pulled in $24.1 billion in online spending from Tuesday through Friday that week, up 30% from the same period in 2024, according to Adobe data. It was more than double the $10.8 billion that people spent on Black Friday last year, Adobe said.

Amazon stock rose 0.6% on Monday, while Target fell 0.1%, and Walmart gained 0.6%.

Demand remained robust throughout August. Retail sales were higher than expected because of growth in online shopping, clothing and sporting goods, hobby supplies, musical instruments, and books—evidence that back-to-school shopping boosted demand.

That bodes well for the holiday season, experts say, because back-to-school sales are often a bellwether for end-of-year demand. The October sales could offer more insight.

Still, most shoppers continue to leave the bulk of their holiday preparations for November and December. According to the retail technology provider Sensormatic, Black Friday and the Saturday before Christmas will be the two busiest shopping days this season.

Deloitte predicts that holiday sales will increase between 2.9% and 3.4% year over year this holiday season.

「We expect this holiday season to demonstrate the resiliency of consumers as they continue to face economic uncertainty,」 Natalie Martini, leader of U.S. retail and consumer products at the consulting company, said in a news release. 「Our forecast anticipates that e-commerce sales will stay strong as consumers keep leveraging online deals to stretch their spending power.」