Black Friday in October? Early Holiday Deals Are Already Here

Ready or not, the holiday sales season is already kicking off, with two major retailers holding sales events in the coming days.

It's been a trend retail experts have been tracking for years. The pre-holiday sales events keep starting earlier and earlier. It's still only the first week of October, and already the opening act to Black Friday sales season has begun.

Prepare to be bombarded with sales leadin gup to the holidays -- starting now.

"It's really started within the past four to five years," said Kristin McGrath of BlackFriday.com. "I think also the pandemic really accelerated these early sales because you saw in 2020, you know, it wasn't a good look for retailers to smash people into stores on Black Friday. So they really started offering these preview deals, these savings events with new deals every week leading up to Black Friday to kind of spread things out. And now they've sort of become the new norm and something that shoppers have started to expect."

Target's Deal Days, Amazon's Prime Early Access Sale

Target's Deal Days are coming a week earlier than last year. The retailer is offering three days of savings on hundreds of thousands of items online and in stores from Oct. 6 to Oct. 8. And Amazon is kicking off the holiday shopping season with its Prime Early Access Sale, a Prime member exclusive event on Oct. 11 and Oct. 12.

"We know from previous iterations of similar events from these retailers that there are going to be some of the best prices of the year as well as category wide savings on things like clothing, beauty, home goods. That's definitely worth checking out."

Tips for early holiday shopping

McGrath said toys are a smart early season buy, especially if your child wants something specific and you can find it in stock during an October sale. But there are some things you may want to wait to buy.

"It can be strategic to wait on those big tech items," she said. "So your laptops. your tablets, your your headphones, your expensive earbuds, things like that. Those tend to see their absolute lowest prices during Black Friday or Black Friday week."

And you can use these early sales to your advantage if you know what you need to buy and can start budgeting for it now.

"It's good to spread out those expenses a little early, get some things a little bit early so you're not having to make all those November paychecks stretch," McGrath said. "And of course, you know, inflation is at record highs. So there might be a few things on your list that you've been putting off buying, putting off on stocking up on just because you couldn't afford it. So these deals are a chance to maybe get those things for less."

Target is offering its annual price match guarantee. Any purchase made between Oct. 6 and Dec. 24 will be eligible to be price matched if the item is discounted at another one of the retailers' upcoming sales events. So that can give you some peace of mind if you make a purchase now.