Although Black Friday is still the best time to buy almost everything, many other seasonal sales events have become almost as big in recent years. With pretty much every retailer planning some sort of fall sale in October, even right now is an excellent time to find deals on tech, video games, and just about everything else.
If you're hoping to save some money at any point this year, there are a few different sale dates worth marking on your calendar. We've gathered some of the biggest upcoming sales events we know about to help you plan out your online shopping in 2024.
1. October Prime Day Sales (October 8-13)
Although it's a fairly new thing, Amazon has started offering a Prime Day-like sale in October ahead of Black Friday deals. The online retailer doesn't call it a Prime Day sale, but that's essentially what it is. This first started in 2022 when Amazon announced a big fall sale to get ahead of the Black Friday shopping season and has since been adopted by other major retailers.
Amazon has officially announced the dates for the October sale starting on October 8-9 and early deals have already begun. It was also announced that Walmart will also have a fall sale running from October 8-13 to compete with Amazon.
2. Black Friday Sales (November 1-30)
Black Friday is the best time to buy just about everything, regardless of the category or retailer. It's the single biggest shopping event and if there are discounts to be had, it's going to be sometime during this sale. Although Black Friday 2024 itself lands on November 29, the actual sale has a much larger window than that.
You can expect the first Black Friday deals to start arriving shortly after October Prime Day, but the general rule of thumb is that all of November will have Black Friday pricing happening everywhere. Many of the best deals will still take place on Thanksgiving and the Friday afterwards.
3. Cyber Monday Sales (December 1-6)
Cyber Monday began back in 2005 as a way to offer shoppers online discounts after Thanksgiving weekend so they could avoid the in-store madness. With the majority of holiday sales moving to an online platform, however, it has since become just as big as Black Friday. Although there are sometimes some differences between Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, they are generally the same thing. The only difference is when they actually happen.
You can expect Cyber Monday sales to kick off the Sunday, rather than actual Cyber Monday. And although the best deals will likely be on December 1-2, many retailers extend their sale through the week by labeling the deals as part of Cyber Week.
4. Green Monday Sales (December 9 - 23)
Green Monday is actually a sales event created by eBay all the way back in 2007. While it isn't nearly as big as Black Friday or Cyber Monday, it essentially represents the last stretch of sales before Christmas. The day itself was originally created as a way to promote the last day you could buy something online and get it shipped to you before the holidays, but thanks to faster shipping every year, that isn't necessarily as much of a problem for the bigger retailers.
In 2024, you can expect Green Monday sales to stretch pretty much right up until December 24 and maybe even through Christmas. Many retailers will label these as "last-minute" sales, but we've lumped them all into the same category.
5. New Year's Sales - (December 26 - January 1)
The final sales event of 2024 is centered around New Year's, but usually starts just after Christmas. These discounts are a chance for retailers to take advantage of shoppers who are returning unwanted gifts and are now flush with extra cash. You can also expect some surprisingly good deals on older tech as these same retailers look to unload older models to make way for newer ones. Late December and early January are actually some of the best times to buy a TV or find a deal on a gaming monitor every year thanks to the proximity to CES (the annual Consumer Electronics show).
Jacob has written for various different publications over his career covering commerce, tech, games, entertainment. You can find the bulk of his previous work at Digital Trends and The Manual where he covered tech deals, Netflix, and food.