We looked deeper into Prime Day deals (October) on Amazon and tracked 50 items across a wide spectrum located in their “Prime Day Deals” section. These items ranged from a JBL Bluetooth Speaker ($25) to a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra ($1,030) to a LEGO Star Wars Ahsoka Ghost Set ($111). Our goal was to examine sale price, discount percentage, and the original price. The average Prime Day discount compared to the “original price” across the 50 items tracked was 36%.
A week after Prime Day, we checked prices on the same 50 items to see how real the deals were. About one-third of the items went back to their original prices, while two-thirds remained “on sale”.
The key number is the True Prime Day Discount, which measures how much cheaper an item was on Prime Day compared to its normal price a week later (Price 10/14). We found the average True Prime Day Discount to be 24%.
The bottom line is Prime Day does offer real discounts, averaging around 24% off. However, the advertised deals often look better than they are because the “original prices” used to calculate those discounts are frequently inflated, making the savings appear larger than what shoppers actually received.
In November 2023, we also spot-checked 50 random advertised Cyber Monday deals on Amazon across a wide range of products. At the time, the average Cyber Monday discount across the 50 items tracked was 34%. The next day, when we checked the same basket the Cyber Monday “true” discount was 16%.
By looking at the two surveys, we have a good idea of how this year’s Cyber Monday event will play out, with real savings of around 15-25%.