Amazon spring sale 2025: five tips on finding the best deals

Telegraph

07-03-2025

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If it follows past form, the Amazon spring sale 2025 will be held at the end of March. It's one of four annual Amazon sales events, preceding the summer and autumn Prime Days and Black Friday in November.
In the spring sale, the best Amazon deals tend to be on homewares such as vacuum cleaners and air fryers or tech, particularly their own products such as Fire TVs, Kindles, Echo smart speakers and Fire Tablets. Read my guide to the best Amazon deals right now to find out which products have already been discounted ahead of the sale.
However, it's important not to get carried away. Not all Amazon discounts are as large as they appear and the best can be hard to find. As Recommended Reviews Editor, tasked with helping you make the right choices on your biggest purchases, I've been covering sales events like this since 2021.
I've learned a few tricks that I'll share below, along with some insight from the Telegraph's consumer champion Katie Morley. But let's cover the basics before we get to the advice.
Amazon spring sale FAQ
What is the Amazon spring sale?
Taking place towards the end of March, the Amazon spring sale sees discounts comparable to Black Friday on items ranging from consumer tech to home and kitchen appliances.
When does the Amazon spring sale start and end?
The dates are under wraps, but judging by past sales, it will be a five-day period at the end of March.
Do I need an Amazon Prime membership to access the spring sale deals?
No, the discounts are open to anyone.
Are there any special perks for Prime members during the Amazon spring sale?
It's likely some lightning deals (where prices are reduced for as little as a few hours) will be Prime exclusives. Look out for the label 'Prime Early Access' when they appear on the Lightning Deals page.
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How to find the best deals in the Amazon spring sale
1. Make sure prices aren't lower elsewhere
'If I'm looking for a big ticket item, I'll usually monitor the average price across all retailers before buying,' Telegraph consumer champion Katie Morley says, 'I never trust that 'sale' prices are actually the cheapest.'
You can use various websites to compare prices at multiple retailers. Idealo compares prices, delivery costs and times and includes ratings so that you can judge sellers' bona fides. Price Spy and Price Runner also allow you to see price history, which you're highly advised to do (see below).
These comparison sites include second-hand models, which can be much cheaper, but should be weighed against how much you trust the seller. Telegraph Recommended staff have bought good-as-new refurbished tech at Amazon itself or at specialists such as Back Market, for lower prices than are seen in the spring sale on new items.
Category-specific sites such as Mattress Online, Air Con Centre and Mobiles.co.uk are also good places to look if you can't find deals at Amazon.
'However, don't forget to factor in the cost of postage and packaging when comparing prices, as expensive fees sometimes can eat into perceived discounts,' Katie says. One Amazon Prime benefit is free next-day delivery.
2. Make sure prices are genuinely at their lowest
This is absolutely key to finding the best Amazon exclusive offers. At Telegraph Recommended, we always calculate discounts against the usual price, rather than the RRP (recommended retail price). Many products are never sold at their RRP and some only for very brief periods of time to make a deal look more impressive.
'Which? research found that nine in 10 (92pc) of Black Friday deals it analysed were the same price or cheaper at other times of the year,' Katie says, 'so genuine deals are harder to find during these shopping events than you might think.'
When we look for the best deals on Amazon, we always check the price history. The graph above shows how the price of one television fluctuated over the last 12 months. Note that it was only sold at its full price for three extremely brief periods. It was at its lowest price for three slightly longer periods, corresponding to Prime Day, Black Friday and Christmas. The rest of the time it was somewhere in the middle. That's the average price you should calculate discounts against.
The source for this graph is CamelCamelCamel, a third-party price tracking site which we use to check price histories. Keepa does largely the same thing. Both are specific to Amazon. Price Spy and Price Runner, mentioned above, allow you to check price histories across multiple retailers.
Having done all this, the good news is that many deals in the Amazon spring sale are at or near the lowest they will be all year. Even if the discount is only 10 per cent, that can be a significant saving on a big-ticket item.
Here are some examples, showing how Amazon's claimed discounts make it hard to tell which deals are worth grabbing:
Lenovo Tab Plus 11.5-inch
£189
An example of a genuine deal
Amazon is selling this at a claimed discount of 35 per cent against the RRP of £289.99. Our price trackers show that the average price over the last year was actually £236. But you're still getting a comparative discount of 20 per cent.
This deal may get better in the spring sale, but you might prefer to buy now in case it sells out. Read our guide to the best tablets to see why reviewer Britta O'Boyle called this the best-value tablet on the market.
Philips Smart Sleep Wake-up Light
£139.99
An example of a deal to avoid for now
Amazon is currently selling this at a claimed discount of seven per cent off the RRP of £149.99. However, the average price over the last year was actually £141.48, making this a saving of less than one per cent.
That's how things stand a few weeks ahead of the spring sale. Our price trackers show that it has in the past been sold for well under £100, so this may be one to keep an eye on if you're in the market for a sunrise alarm clock.
3. Shop at smart times
If an item you have your eye on is going to be discounted, it's likely the discount will be applied at the stroke of midnight. In-demand products might have sold out by the time everyone else wakes up, so this can be a clever time to buy.
The early hours of the morning can also be a smart time to look for Lightning Deals. Prominently displayed on Amazon's deals page, these are limited-time deals where Amazon and third-party sellers make a limited inventory available at a lower price for a set time.
Some lightning deals can be as short as a few hours. Often the inventory sells out well before the period ends. Discounts here can be substantial, but don't let haste prevent you checking that the price is genuinely lower than usual and that it can't be bought cheaper elsewhere.
4. Use wish lists and price alerts
'Retailers love to create events because it gives them an excuse to sell higher volumes of the items they are looking to sell,' Katie says. These may not necessarily be the items you're looking to buy. Keep a cool head and focus on buying things you would have bought anyway, but at a better price.
One tip is to create a wish list. Log into your Amazon account. Select 'Accounts and Lists' from the top of the page. (On the Amazon app you'll find it behind the 'Me' tab at the bottom of the screen.) Create a list.
When you see something you like on Amazon, you can select 'Add to list' instead of 'Add to basket'. You can filter a list to show only the items with current deals. Checking it regularly could give you a head start on time-limited deals.
You can also enable Amazon deal notifications on your phone. Go to the 'Me' tab in the Amazon app and click the 'Settings' gearwheel to find the Notification settings. Within that, select 'Deals And Recommendations' and finally click 'Savings'.
All the price checking sites mentioned above allow you to set price alerts on products. You choose the price you're prepared to pay and when it falls to that price or lower, you'll receive an alert.
5. Shop out of season
'Reductions are most likely when customer demand for seasonal items is lowest and retailers need to shift physical stock to make way for new items, ' Katie says. 'For example, if you're buying Christmas decorations in January, or summer clothes in autumn. If you can take a longer term approach with your shopping and buy ahead, this is how you'll snap up the best bargains.'
In the spring sale, look out for shopping deals on winter clothes, electric heaters and heated blankets to save a few pounds compared to buying on Black Friday.
Once the Amazon spring sale starts, we'll be identifying all the best deals and adding them to our top buyer's guides. If you see an eye-catching deal promoted elsewhere but not at Telegraph Recommended, that's a sign that our competitors aren't working quite as hard to sort the wheat from the chaff.