This year, Black Friday, the universal holiday honoring unbridled commerce, will happen on Nov. 27. That doesn’t mean that Black Friday is limited to only that day, though: today, megastore Amazon.com kicked off their “Countdown to Black Friday,” which is apparently sort of like an Advent calendar full of external hard drives and sneakers.

Not that we’re complaining. I would buy that if it were an actual Advent calendar. However, it was just a few months ago that Amazon blew out its own sale records with Prime Day, its anniversary celebration and attempt to sell Prime subscriptions to the masses. While customers complained about the deals they saw and the deals they didn’t see, they also bought a lot of stuff: the company reported higher sales than previous actual Black Fridays.

Mashable points out that Amazon usually launches their holiday deals site sometime around the beginning of November,

Amazon’s goal, of course, is to lure you into joining Prime: not only do they get your hundred bucks for a membership fee, but Prime members tend to do more of their shopping through Amazon than non-members.

Our deal-combing colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports are running their own Countdown to Black Friday, too. The discounts aren’t as deep, but they do include items that are recommended according to their tests.

Amazon will use Black Friday to try lure you into Prime [Washington Post]
Amazon’s Black Friday site is here, almost a month before Black Friday [Mashable]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.