Waiting until Black Friday to start holiday shopping is a thing of the past—at least according to Amazon.
The Seattle-based e-commerce company on Monday announced the launch of its first Black Friday Deals Store, offering discounts on thousands of products from now through December 22.
The decision to start discounting weeks before the traditional Black Friday was inspired in part by last summer’s successful Prime Day, an attempt to encourage customer spending—enough to rival its 2014 record-breaking Black Friday sales—by offering big discounts exclusively to Prime members—who pay $99 per year for free or discounted services.
Despite reports of disgruntled shoppers, the event was a major success for the company, which sold more than 34.4 million items at a rate of “398 items ordered per second.”
This go-round, Prime members will have special access to Lightning Deals for a full 30 minutes before they open to all.
“Shoppers come to Amazon to discover the best deals on the best gifts and this year, we’re pulling out all of the stops,” said Steve Shure, vice president of consumer marketing. “We’re giving Prime members early access to more than 30,000 Lightning Deals and for all customers, tens of thousands of great deals in the Black Friday Deals store. With incredible deals, fast delivery options, curated lists like our Electronics Holiday Gift Guide, gift recommendations, customer reviews and more, we’re making it easier than ever for customers to save time and money on their holiday shopping.”
Whether or not the Deals Store will continue after this year is yet to be determined. Amazon received some complaints about the quality and accessibility of Prime Day deals and the company may experience the same issue now.