October Prime Day for Arbitrage Sellers: Buy or Sell?

1. What Is October Prime Day (and Why Arbitrage Sellers Should Care)

Amazon started running a second Prime Day every fall in 2022. They call it "Prime Big Deal Days" but in the FBA world it's October Prime Day. It runs 48 hours, usually the second week of October, and most arbitrage sellers miss the real opportunity.

For regular shoppers, it's about deals on Amazon. For OA sellers, the play is at every competing retailer cutting prices to fight the event. Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Walgreens, CVS - they all slash prices. That's your window.

This post covers what to buy, when to ship it, and why selling during the event is a mistake.

2. Buy or Sell? The Short Answer

Both. But at different times and for different reasons.

Buy hard during October Prime Day, then sell through November and December. October Prime Day compresses margins on Amazon's marketplace. Repricers go to war, prices drop fast, the buy box gets chaotic, and your margins shrink. Spend those 48 hours sourcing.

Competing retailers bleed price to fight Amazon, and you pick up inventory at 40-50% off normal retail. You sell it in November and December. For the full picture on timing your inventory into Q4, read my post on Amazon FBA Q4 inventory planning.

3. Why Competing Retailers Are Your Real Target

Most OA sellers hear "Prime Day" and think Amazon discounts. That's backwards. Amazon dropping prices on its own listings hurts third-party sellers. The opportunity is at Walmart, Target, and every other major retailer cutting prices to keep customers off Amazon.

I've pulled deals at 50-60% off from Walmart and Target during October Prime Day events that never show up on a normal scan day. The Keepa BSR on those products showed 90+ days of consistent sales history. The only thing that changed was the buy cost, which made the math work.

That's what online arbitrage does well: buy when retail is stressed, hold when demand is strong. October Prime Day creates the stress. Q4 creates the demand.

4. Best Categories to Source During October Prime Day

Electronics and toys get the headlines. My buying during this event is different:

• Toys and games - retailers pre-discount to clear shelf space before Black Friday toy shipments arrive. Margins can hit 40-80% ROI if you're ungated. If you're not ungated in toys yet, handle that before mid-October: how to get ungated in toys on Amazon.
• Health and beauty - steady BSR, high repurchase rates, and heavy discounting from CVS and Walgreens running counter-promotions
• Household essentials - boring but reliable. 3-4x monthly sales velocity, moderate competition, holds up through repricing wars
• Small kitchen appliances - Best Buy and Target cut these hard during Prime Day-adjacent events, and BSR holds through Q4

Skip high-end electronics unless you have a specific angle. Big players with margin to burn clear out TVs, laptops, and phones. Deals look good. Competition is brutal.

5. Which Sites to Hit First

Your scanning order matters during a 48-hour window. Priority list:

1. Walmart.com - the biggest Prime Day competitor, deepest discounts on household and general merchandise
2. Target.com - strong on toys, beauty, and baby. Often runs stackable Circle offers on top of event pricing
3. Walgreens.com - health and beauty sourcing gold, especially Buy 1 Get 1 promos that stack with weekly deals
4. CVS.com - similar to Walgreens, heavy on personal care and OTC health products
5. BestBuy.com - small appliances and electronics accessories with strong year-round BSR

Stack cashback on every order. Even 3-5% cashback on a $500 purchase is $15-25 back in your pocket. That adds real margin to every deal. See how to stack cashback on OA orders and add 2-8% to every buy.

6. How to Analyze Deals Without Wasting Hours

You can't manually vet 200 products during a 48-hour event. Your OA software setup decides whether you make money or buy random stuff that happens to be on sale. I learned this moving from retail arbitrage to online arbitrage.

"I used like maybe 6,000 minutes [in December] and before that...in October or November I used like close to 80,000 minutes because I was just starting online arbitrage. Before that I was doing retail arbitrage, and when you figure it out, you need the help of software to scan the websites." The Best Online Arbitrage Software 2023: Tier List

Your deal flow during October Prime Day: a bulk scan tool to surface candidates, SellerAmp for fast lead verification, then Keepa to confirm 90-180 day BSR and price history. Look for consistent sellers. Skip anything that spiked once from an Amazon deal placement.

For which tools are worth paying for and which to skip, see my OA software tier list.

7. Build Your Buy List Before the Event Starts

Sellers who clean up during October Prime Day build their target list two weeks out: specific products, specific retailers, specific price thresholds. When promotions go live, they're buying within the first hour.

"There's gonna be one single promotion on the little list of websites you have, so you're gonna need to go beyond that, especially if you're trying to spend a lot of money. This happened to me when I started online arbitrage, when I transitioned to online arbitrage, and I do not want you guys to have the same thing." Online Arbitrage Sourcing Routine: Do This Everyday

Two weeks before October Prime Day, run your normal OA scans and flag any product where retail price is the only barrier to a good deal. Log the ASIN, the current buy cost, and the price point that makes the math work. When the event drops prices, your list is ready.

For the full build process, read how to build an OA buy list fast. It covers target lists, BSR filters, and how to prioritize when you have 50+ candidates competing for the same capital.

8. The Sell Side: What Happens to Your Margins

Say you ignore this and sell during October Prime Day. Amazon reprices its own inventory down. Third-party sellers repricer-war each other. The buy box jumps every 15 minutes. Your $21.50 listing matches down to $16.80. You're selling at a $1.40 net margin or losing the buy box and selling nothing.

Hold your floor price and don't lower it chasing the buy box. Source instead. Unless you have a product with almost no competition and a stable 180-day price history, October Prime Day is a buying event.

9. Timing Your FBA Send-In for Maximum Q4 Profit

October Prime Day typically runs October 8-10. Source on day one, ship same-day or next-day, and product arrives at FBA around October 15-22. Check-in and receiving adds another 3-7 days. You're live on Amazon around October 20-28.

The timing works. Q4 demand picks up in early November. You're positioned before Black Friday sourcing gets competitive, you're not carrying weeks of extra storage fees, and your inventory is ready when buyers show up. Check the Q4 prep checklist for the full timing breakdown from October through December.

One thing to check before you send: your IPI score and restock limits. Push a big October Prime Day haul to FBA and hit a capacity rejection, and you lose the timing advantage you spent two weeks setting up.

10. Cash Flow Planning for October and Beyond

October Prime Day comes 6-8 weeks before Black Friday. You need capital for the Prime Day event, Black Friday sourcing, Cyber Monday, and the general Q4 push. That's heavy demand on working capital in a short window.

My approach: reserve about 30% of my October sourcing budget for the Prime Day event. The other 70% stays ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which have deeper discounts and higher sell-through demand. Tying up everything in October can leave you flat when the real Q4 windows open in late November.

If cash flow is tight going into this stretch, read the FBA cash flow trap post before you allocate anything. A lot of sellers kill their Q4 by sourcing too early with too much capital tied up in slow movers.

11. The Biggest Mistake I See Every Year

Every October I watch sellers treat Prime Day like a consumer instead of a business owner. They buy on excitement. They don't check Keepa. They don't check competition levels. They're shopping, not sourcing.

Your only three questions during October Prime Day: Does this product have a 90-day BSR under 150,000? Does it have 3+ months of consistent sales history? Does the current deal price produce at least 30% ROI after all FBA fees? If any answer is no, skip it.

If you're still learning what good numbers look like, come watch me work through these decisions on real products. I run a free live sourcing session every Thursday at ngunza.com/register. Sixty minutes, no pitch, live sourcing with full number breakdowns.

12. Next Steps

October Prime Day is one window inside a longer Q4 sourcing season. Five posts to lock in the rest of your Q4 strategy before the event starts:

• Q4 Sourcing Calendar: Every Key Date From October Through December
• Black Friday Sourcing for Amazon FBA: How to Not Miss the Window
• Amazon FBA Q4 Prep Checklist: Everything to Do Before November 1
• How to Build an OA Buy List Fast Without Wasting Hours Scanning
• The Online Arbitrage Daily Routine That Scales Past $10K Per Month