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 retail giants like Amazon turning July sales into a full-blown event, even the summer time is now 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. Steam Summer Sale (June 27 - July 11)
The next big sale you can look forward to is one of the biggest video game sales of the year. The Steam Summer Sale is one of the best times of the year to buy PC games and usually offers some of the best ones at a discount. Steam's annual sale kicks off tomorrow and runs all the way through July 11.
You can shop for Steam games in the app, on the online store page, or via your Steam Deck if you have one.
2. Walmart Prime Day Sale (July 8-11)
Although Walmart just finished up its 4th of July sale, the retail giant recently dropped a huge Prime Day rival sale. The event is set to start on Monday, July 8 and run through Thursday, July 11. Our guide to the best Walmart Prime Day deals gives you a glimpse of some of the deals of the sale, which includes everything from TVs to Nintendo Switch games.
The sale officially started for all customers at 5 p.m. ET on July 8, but some shoppers got early access to the deals by having a Walmart+ membership.
3. Amazon Prime Day Sale (July 16-17)
Arguably the biggest sale of the summer is Prime Day 2024. The Amazon deals event is set to take place on July 16-17 this year. The online retailer is already going all out on promotion for the event by offering free PC games for Prime members as well as big discounts on popular subscriptions. You can expect more early Prime Day deals to roll out as the event gets closer. And while it is primarily an Amazon sale, you can likely expect counter sales from other retailers happen at the same time.
Some of the best parts of Prime Day are reserved for Amazon Prime members, but Amazon still offers a 30-day free trial new subscribers can take advantage of.
4. Labor Day Sales (August 30 - September 2)
After Prime Day, the next big sale event to look forward to is Labor Day weekend. Similar to other U.S. holidays, pretty much every major retailer will have some sort of sale to coincide with the three-day weekend. Although there is often a wide range of sales, some of the most popular sale items during this time coincide with back-to-school shopping. Because of this, it's one of the best times to buy a new laptop or find clothing discounts from popular stores. It's really the last big sale until Black Friday if you don't count Amazon's October Prime Day.
5. October Prime Day Sales (TBA)
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.
Althoug we don't yet have a date for the sale, it usally takes place during the second week of October and runs for a couple of days.
6. 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.
7. 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.
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.
