Amazon Prime Day – what is it and how do you prepare as a seller? [2026]

As of 28 September 2026. This article covers the results of Prime Day 2026 (23–26 June), deal fees in Amazon’s European stores, and the dates of Prime Big Deal Days (6–7 October 2026) and Black Friday Week 2026.

Amazon Prime Day is Amazon’s annual shopping event, open exclusively to Prime members. Sellers run Lightning Deals, Best Deals, Prime Exclusive Discounts and coupons during the event. In 2026, Prime Day ran for four days, from 23 to 26 June, including on Amazon.pl. The second event of this kind, Prime Big Deal Days, will take place on 6–7 October 2026. On Amazon.de, a deal in the event costs EUR 16 plus 0.75% of promotional sales (up to EUR 1,000), and the deal price must be at least 5% lower than your lowest price in the last 30 days.

What is Amazon Prime Day?

Amazon Prime Day is a multi-day sale that Amazon runs for Prime subscribers, including those on a 30-day trial. The first edition took place in 2015 to mark Amazon’s 20th anniversary and lasted 24 hours in 9 countries. In 2022, Prime Day came to Poland for the first time, and since that year Amazon has held two events of this scale every year: the summer Prime Day and the autumn Prime Big Deal Days (promoted on Amazon.pl as “Dni Prime”), which opens the pre-Christmas shopping season.

Prime Day 2026 was the first summer Prime Day held in June since 2021, two weeks earlier than the 2025 edition. That matters for planning: the date of the summer event moves, so base your schedule for FBA shipments and deal submissions on the date Amazon announces, not on the assumption that Prime Day always falls in July.

Shoppers plan these purchases in advance. According to an Amazon.pl survey from June 2026, promotional events are a key part of shopping planning for nearly 7 in 10 Poles, and 75% get satisfaction from finding a good deal. Traffic and wish-list additions therefore start building before the event begins, not on opening day.

How much does Amazon Prime cost in Poland?

Amazon Prime in Poland costs PLN 69 a year or PLN 15.50 a month, following a price rise from PLN 49 and PLN 10.99 respectively. New users can take a 30-day free trial and get full access to Prime Day deals during that time. In Germany, Prime costs EUR 8.99 a month or EUR 89.90 a year. The subscription includes free fast delivery with no minimum order value, Prime Video, games on Amazon Luna and access to members-only events.

Prime 2026 calendar for sellers: dates and deadlines

The most expensive Prime Day mistakes come from missed deadlines, not from the strategy itself. Once the submission window closes, a deal won’t make it onto the event’s deals page, and stock delivered late may not get the Prime badge in time. Here are the dates for Amazon’s European stores, as announced in Seller Central:

For Prime Day 2026, the early submission discount applied until 30 April 2026. As of 28 September 2026, the submission window for Prime Big Deal Days has already closed, and the early submission discount for Black Friday Week expired on 5 September. For the October event, that leaves mainly ads, coupons and price reductions.

Amazon has also announced that in September and October its fulfilment centres will prioritise receiving inbound shipments, while in November and December they will focus on shipping orders, so available delivery appointments may run out. If you ship larger volumes, reserve extra capacity through Capacity Manager.

How does Prime Day work from a seller’s perspective?

Sellers can take part in Prime Day in two ways. The first is to submit paid deals, which Amazon showcases on the event’s deals page. The second is to make the most of the higher traffic without deals: through ads, coupons and well-prepared listings. Deals are aimed at Prime members, so the offer needs the Prime badge, which in practice means fulfilment through Amazon FBA or Seller Fulfilled Prime. A seller using FBM without Prime won’t get into the event deals but can still use ads and coupons.

We describe how time-limited deals work in detail in our article on Lightning Deals on Amazon.

Deal pricing requirements in 2026

Amazon checks the deal price against your offer’s price history, so price cuts made a few weeks before the event can disqualify the deal you want to submit. Three rules apply:

• At least 5% below the lowest price in the last 30 days. In the European stores, the deal price must be at least 5% lower than the lowest selling price in the last 30 days. If you’re planning a deal for an event, hold off on other price cuts for about a month beforehand.
• Product rating for Prime Exclusive Discounts. For Prime Big Deal Days and Black Friday Week 2026, a Prime Exclusive Discount requires a product rating of at least 3.5.
• Omnibus. EU law (Article 6a of the Price Indication Directive, applicable since 28 May 2022) requires any announced price reduction to refer to the lowest price in the 30 days before the reduction. In September 2024, the CJEU confirmed that the percentage discount must also be calculated from that price.

Cutting prices is not mandatory. Omnia Retail tracked 1.19 million products in Amazon’s European stores during Prime Day 2026, and only 13.8% of them dropped in price by more than 3%. Most offers compete on visibility during the event rather than on discount, so base your deal decisions on your margin calculation, not on calendar pressure.

How much does it cost to take part in Prime Day? Deal fees for 2026

The fee for a deal in a Prime event consists of an upfront fee per promotion and a variable fee calculated on sales from that promotion, subject to a cap. The rates apply to Best Deals, Lightning Deals and Prime Exclusive Discounts. Amazon has confirmed that Prime Big Deal Days and Black Friday Week 2026 carry the same rates as Prime Day 2026:

Submitting a deal in the early window reduces the upfront fee by 30%, which on Amazon.de means EUR 11.20 instead of EUR 16. Amazon’s announcements do not give rates for Amazon.pl or for the stores in the Netherlands, Sweden and Belgium. You’ll see the current fee in Seller Central when you create a deal.

Black Friday Week also brings the FBA peak fee. On Amazon.de, it averages EUR 0.27 per unit for small and standard-size parcels shipped via local FBA, Pan-EU FBA and the European Fulfilment Network (EFN). It applies from 15 October 2026 to 14 January 2027. It does not apply to oversize products, products in the Low-Price FBA programme or deliveries to customers in other EU countries. The 1.5% fuel and logistics surcharge still applies alongside it. Prime Big Deal Days (6–7 October) falls before the peak fee period. You’ll find a full overview of standard fees in our article on Amazon commissions and selling costs.

Worked example: when does a deal pay off?

Let’s take a model product on Amazon.de priced at EUR 39.99, with a −20% deal (EUR 31.99) and 400 units sold through the deal:

* Assumed indicative value. The actual fee depends on the product’s dimensions and weight, and you can check it in the Revenue Calculator in Seller Central.

** EUR 11.20 upfront fee (submitted with the 30% discount) + 0.75% × EUR 12,796 in promotional sales = EUR 107.17, divided by 400 units.

In this example, the 20% discount cuts the margin per unit by 44%. For the deal to earn as much as selling at the regular price, it has to sell 1.8 times as many units as you would have sold in the same period without it. Selling 400 units through the deal generates around EUR 2,930 in margin, the same as 223 units at the regular price. The fees for the deal itself are marginal (EUR 0.27 per unit). What decides profitability is the depth of the discount, not the promotion fee schedule.

A deal makes financial sense in two situations: when you realistically expect that kind of volume multiplier, or when you are deliberately paying for position. Event volume boosts organic ranking and the number of reviews, which supports sales after Prime Day. Factor advertising into the calculation too, as cost-per-click rises during the event.

What does Prime Day 2026 teach us? Post-event data

The Prime Day 2026 data offers five lessons for sellers planning their next events. The Adobe, Numerator and Tinuiti figures relate to the US market, and the Omnia Retail figures to the European market:

1. Record sales, but smaller baskets. According to Adobe Analytics, US shoppers spent USD 26.4 billion online over the four days of the event (+9.3% year on year). Day one brought in USD 8.3 billion (+5.3% year on year), more than Thanksgiving 2025. At the same time, Numerator recorded an 11% fall in average order value and an 8% fall in spending per household. Takeaway: calculate your margin based on a smaller basket and consider bundles that increase its value.
2. The first day is losing share to the last. According to Tinuiti, Sponsored Products sales on the first day of the event were more than 300% higher than the Q2 daily average. However, the first day’s share of event sales fell from 34% (2025) to 31%, while the last day’s share rose from 23% to 27%. Takeaway: spread your budget across all days and don’t exhaust it on day one.
3. Most offers don’t get cheaper. Only 13.8% of the 1.19 million products tracked by Omnia Retail in Amazon’s European stores dropped in price by more than 3%. Visibility during the event is largely determined by advertising and offer quality.
4. Demand is concentrated in a few categories. In the US, electronics sales rose by 120% against the June daily average, household appliances by 90%, tools and home improvement by 70%, and home and garden by 65%. The June date gave back-to-school shopping a boost: children’s clothing +140%, backpacks +115%.
5. Traffic from AI assistants is growing and converting. Traffic from AI platforms to US online stores rose by 89% year on year during the event and converted 40% better than traffic from other channels (in 2025, it converted 23% worse). Complete, specific listing data (specifications, use cases, answers to customer questions) helps you get recommended by shopping assistants.

Amazon confirmed record sales by independent sellers during Prime Day 2026 but, for the first time since 2020, did not disclose the number of units sold.

How do you prepare for Prime Day? A step-by-step timeline

You start preparing for Prime Day around 12 weeks before the event. The timeline below counts from the start date (T). Check the exact delivery and submission dates in the Seller Central announcements for the event in question:

Don’t overstock for the event. Stock that doesn’t sell incurs long-term storage fees and takes up space ahead of Q4. We cover demand estimation methods in our article on sales forecasting in e-commerce.

Amazon Ads on Prime Day: how to set up your campaigns

Prime Day advertising runs in three phases: warm-up (2–4 weeks before the event), the event itself and follow-up (1–2 weeks after it). Cost-per-click rises during the event, typically by 30–70% according to the German agency The Marketplace Guys, so raise your budgets in advance rather than watching your campaigns use up their daily limit before midday.

• Warm-up. Automatic campaigns collect keywords, and you move the best ones into manual campaigns with your own bids. Visitors from this period form your remarketing audience for the event days.
• Budget rules. Set up scheduled budget rules for the event days in Amazon Ads so that your campaigns don’t switch off once they hit their daily limit.
• Brand defence. Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands campaigns targeting your own brand and your own ASINs stop competitors from capturing traffic from your product detail pages.
• Even budget distribution. The last day’s share of sales is growing (27% in 2026 according to Tinuiti), so don’t spend everything on day one.
• Follow-up. Sponsored Display targeting people who viewed your offer during the event lets you win back some of the traffic that didn’t buy.
• TACOS, not just ACOS. Evaluate advertising against total sales. Part of the event’s impact is organic sales afterwards.

We run advertising campaigns on Amazon as part of our Amazon PPC management service.

Case study: Q4 with Prime events on Amazon.de – Domino Polska

Working with Domino Polska (the LAVITA and Wild Wood brands, Amazon.de), we started preparing for peak season by getting the account in order, not by running promotions. First, we placed removal orders for non-moving stock in several FBA warehouses to stop long-term storage costs. Then we grouped products into variation families, rewrote the bullet points around German-market keywords and rebuilt the campaigns: we added negative keywords and switched off unprofitable products.

Q4 2025, boosted by the October Prime event and Black Week, delivered a record October with EUR 350,000 in revenue (+90% year on year) and a November with over EUR 450,000 (+138% year on year). Amazon Ads campaigns in October and November generated EUR 360,000 in revenue at a ROAS of 8.15. You’ll find the full story of the project in our case study on 138% sales growth on Amazon.de.

This project holds a lesson for every Prime event: deals and ads multiply what is already in the account. An account with stagnant stock, chaotic variations and campaigns without negative keywords will burn through its budget during the event faster than it makes money.

The most common seller mistakes before Prime Day

1. Price cuts just before the event. You lower your price in May or September, and your event deal is rejected because it doesn’t meet the requirement of 5% below the lowest price in the last 30 days.
2. Stock delivered late. The deal goes live, but there’s no stock, or the offer doesn’t have the Prime badge.
3. A deal on a weak offer. A discount won’t fix a listing with poor images, a low rating or missing specifications. It will only bring in more traffic that doesn’t buy.
4. No calculation after fees. A 20% discount can eat up almost half of the margin per unit, as in the example above.
5. An exhausted ad budget. Campaigns go dark in the first half of day one, and competitors take over the traffic for the rest of the event.
6. Overstocking. “Just in case” stock sits unsold after the event and racks up storage fees in the most expensive period of the year.
7. No plan for the next events. The submission deadlines for Prime Big Deal Days and Black Friday Week pass before the team has finished analysing the summer Prime Day.

What should you measure after Prime Day? KPIs for sellers

Sales during the event alone won’t tell you whether Prime Day paid off. Measure these metrics:

Amazon Prime Day – frequently asked questions (FAQ)

What is Amazon Prime Day?

Amazon Prime Day is Amazon’s annual, multi-day shopping event, open exclusively to Prime members. Sellers offer Lightning Deals, Best Deals, Prime Exclusive Discounts and coupons, which Amazon showcases on a dedicated deals page.

When is Prime Day 2026?

Prime Day 2026 took place from 23 to 26 June 2026, including on Amazon.pl. The next event for Prime members, Prime Big Deal Days, will take place on 6–7 October 2026 in 22 countries, including Poland.

How long does Prime Day last?

Since 2025, the summer Prime Day has lasted four days. Before that, from 2019 to 2024, it lasted two days. The autumn Prime Big Deal Days event lasts two days.

What is the difference between Prime Day and Prime Big Deal Days?

Prime Day is the bigger summer event. Prime Big Deal Days (on Amazon.pl: “Dni Prime”) takes place in October and opens the pre-Christmas shopping season. Both are open only to Prime members, but they have separate deadlines for deal submissions and FBA deliveries. Submitting a deal for one does not cover the other.

How much does it cost a seller to take part in Prime Day?

On Amazon.de, a deal in the event costs an upfront fee of EUR 16 plus 0.75% of promotional sales, up to a maximum of EUR 1,000. In France, Italy and Spain, it is EUR 10 plus 0.5%, up to a maximum of EUR 300. Submitting in the early window cuts the upfront fee by 30%. The biggest cost, however, is the discount itself, not the fee.

Can FBM sellers take part in Prime Day?

An FBM seller can benefit from the higher traffic on Prime Day through ads and coupons. To join the event deals, however, they need the Prime badge, which means fulfilment through FBA or the Seller Fulfilled Prime programme.

Do you have to cut prices on Prime Day?

No. During Prime Day 2026, only 13.8% of the 1.19 million products tracked in Amazon’s European stores dropped in price by more than 3%. A deal makes sense when your calculation shows that the extra volume will at least offset the lost margin, or when you are deliberately investing in ranking and reviews.

How much does Amazon Prime cost in Poland?

Amazon Prime in Poland costs PLN 69 a year or PLN 15.50 a month. New users get 30 days free and can access Prime Day deals during that time.

Want to find out which products in your catalogue are worth submitting for the next Prime event and what ad budgets to set?

As an Amazon EU Agency Platinum Partner and Amazon Ads Verified Partner, we provide Amazon seller account management, from deal calculations and delivery planning to campaigns and post-event analysis. If you’d first like to know what’s holding your account back, start with an Amazon account audit.