Amazon's Big Spring Sale just started and some of the best deals are already dropping. It's like Prime Day, come early. From today until March 31, you can expect to save up to 45% on home and garden appliances, furniture and decor.
With so much listed for so little, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. That's where we come in. Our eCommerce Editors are teaming up to pool the best products from our back catalog of reviews and dig up the deepest discounts for Amazon Spring Deal Days.
Each of our shopping writers has their own specialism. Lydia covers kitchen content, including blenders, juicers, air fryers, and the like. Dan is our resident home tech expert, specializing in vacuum cleaners. And I'm Emilia, your Sleep Editor, bringing you the best bedding and mattresses.
First, I'll drop a few quick links to help you shop the Amazon Spring Sale by department. Then, I'll round up our favorite deals, before explaining more about the best times to shop at Amazon and what actually constitutes a good deal.
Shop the Amazon Big Spring Sale by department
- Amazon Big Spring Sale: browse everything on offer at Amazon
- Amazon Deals of the Day: shop today's deepest discounts
- Amazon Top 100: all the bestsellers from the Amazon Big Spring Sale
- Amazon Home & Kitchen deals: from Nespresso coffee makers to Dyson fans
- Amazon Cleaning & Organization deals: everyday essentials to keep your home neat and tidy
- Amazon Patio Prep deals: power tools, furniture and decor to upgrade your garden
Our favorite finds from the Amazon Spring Sale
The Siena Memory Foam Mattress is already one of the best affordable mattresses on the market. Now, with $80 off in the Amazon Spring Sale, it's a downright steal. 'The Siena Memory Foam Mattress is proof that you get what you pay for,' says expert tester Tonya Pendleton: 'central support and optimal motion isolation, but not much breathability.'
The best affordable bed sheets just got a deep discount for Amazon Spring Deal Days. Made from microfiber and finished with a silky-smooth sateen weave, these sheets are real crowd-pleasers, boasting more than 250,000 five-star reviews on Amazon. The Mellanni Queen Sheet Set is lightweight, more suitable for summer nights than winter weather.
'Debuting in 2016, the design is still a popular choice for pet owners and those looking for a small, quick, convenient cleaner,' says expert tester Dan Fauzi. 'While it doesn't have Dyson's latest technology, it's effective on carpets and hard floors alike, exhibiting many of the qualities that we look for in the best cordless vacuums.'
'When it first launched, the USP of the Instant Vortex Plus Air Fryer was its ability to almost entirely eliminate cooking odors,' explains expert tester Millie Fender. 'That's good news if you live in a small apartment, or you have an open-plan kitchen, and you don't want the smell of your dinner to pervade your whole home. This quick, quiet cooker gets five stars from me.'
According to expert tester Alex David, the Ninja Blast Portable Blender is 'great at crushing ice and chopping leafy greens, but struggles with seeds and larger chunks of fruit and veg. I'd use the Ninja Blast to whip up a quick protein shake before the gym, but I wouldn't try to incorporate frozen ingredients.'
Just because there's a sale on doesn't mean you should be duped into buying products you don't need and won't use. One way to make the Amazon Big Spring Sale work for you is to stock up on essentials. You can use these disinfecting wipes to clean everything from toys and tubs to kitchen surfaces.
'This is an old-school air purifier,' says Home Tech Editor Dan Fauzi. 'You don't need to touch a screen or speak to your smart assistant to make it work. All you need to do is press a button. The Levoit Core 300 may not be as powerful as some of the best purifiers, but it performs exceptionally at its price point.' Now, with a 20% discount for Amazon Spring Deal Days, it's even more affordable.
Our Place makes non-toxic cookware with extreme temperature capability: you could put this pan in the oven or on the hob up to 1000°F. The Always Pan is free from PFAS or Forever Chemicals, but still non-stick, so it's suitable for delicate cooking of eggs, pancakes, crepes, and the like.
'This is the best Nespresso machine out there,' confirms former barista Laura Honey. 'This one-button-does-all machine is ideal for busy mornings and beginner brewers. The Nespresso Vertuo Next is compatible with single espresso, double espresso, Gran Lungo, mug, and carafe-sized pods, so you've got plenty of options.'
When is the best time to get an Amazon deal?
Amazon Prime Day deals
You see the greatest breadth and depth of Amazon deals on Amazon Prime Day. Remember, there are two Prime Days each year – one in July, one in October – and each event lasts for 48 hours.
In my experience as a sales hunter, the deepest Amazon Prime Day deals are on Amazon hardware, such as Kindles, Fire Tablets, and Echo devices. If you're shopping specifically for home goods, you're just as likely to find a deep discount on Black Friday.
Where Amazon Black Friday deals are open to everyone, you can only make the most of Amazon Prime Day deals if you're a Prime member. Not to worry: other major retailers, including Walmart and Best Buy, tend to run their own counter-sales around Amazon Prime Day, and you don't have to be a member to shop at those.
Amazon Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals
Amazon Black Friday deals start dropping around a week in advance of the big day. If you want to beat the crowds and bag a bargain on a trending appliance, I suggest you shop early.
In my experience, Black Friday is the best time to shop for homeware. It's when all the major home retailers compete to offer the lowest prices. I've seen sheet sets on sale for less than half price, hundreds of dollars off mattresses and sofas, and deep discounts on small and large appliances.
Amazon Lightning deals
Lightning Deals are flash sales that pop up around major sales periods. You're less likely to find small or large appliances in the Lightning Deals section – think more along the lines of skincare, make-up, and other impulse buys.
You can make Lightning Deals work for you by stocking up on a few inexpensive items to get you over the threshold for free delivery. So, if I were buying a $35 sheet set, but I needed to spend $40 to qualify for free delivery, I could shop the Lightning Deals section to pick up a few cheap favors.
How can you tell if you've found a good deal at Amazon?
Download a price tracking tool
Shop like an eCommerce Editor and use a price tracking tool, which gives you access to the price history of a particular product. That way, you can work out from context whether you're actually getting a good deal, or if you'd be better off waiting for prices to fall further in the next holiday sales.
For Amazon, I recommend CamelCamelCamel. Here's how it works: paste the Amazon link or ASIN into CamelCamelCamel's search bar, and you'll see the product's lowest recorded price, as well as its average price, and when that prices tends to fluctuate. These figures form 'humps' on a line graph, like the back of a camel.
Use comparison sites
This could be as easy as clicking the Google 'Shopping' tab at the top of your search engine results page. You might find that the best deal isn't on Amazon at all, but Target or Wayfair or somewhere else entirely.
Only buy the items you actually need
Throughout the year, I keep a wish list of the items and appliances I want to buy. Sometimes, I add the item to my cart before the sale begins, so that I can buy it right away when the deal drops.
When the sales start, I'm strict with myself − I only let myself shop from my wish list. That way, I get the dopamine hit from bargain-hunting, but I don't fall victim to overspending.
FAQs
Do you have to be a Prime member to access Amazon deals?
Technically, no. Every day, Amazon drops hundreds of deals, many of which are open to the public. With that said, if you want to access the deepest discounts and the widest range of deals, you should sign up for Amazon Prime.
Here's a workaround if you want access to deals over a holiday weekend, but you don't want to pay for Prime all year: sign up for the one-month free trial right before you want to shop. For that month, you'll get free one-day delivery, plus access to Amazon's Prime Video streaming service. As long as you cancel before the 30-day cut-off, you won't be charged. If you forget to cancel your payment, you'll be charged $14.99 a month.
Can I get alerts for Amazon deals?
Yes. Download the Amazon shopping app and subscribe to deal notifications on items on your wish list.
Amazon is an enormous website, with hundreds of product launches and new deals every day. To save you from feeling overwhelmed, we wrote a guide that teaches you how to shop Amazon like a style editor. That way, you can save time and money and sort through to find the good stuff.
