Best Black Friday Amazon Echo Deals 2021: What to Expect

Nothing else epitomizes Black Friday so much as Black Friday Amazon Echo deals. Amazon attract hordes of buyers to its website who want to stock up on the current year’s Amazon Echo Black Friday deals — and a hefty proportion of those buyers stay to make additional purchases. Most merchants use Black Friday deals for well-known products to bring buyers to their site, but with Amazon’s claims of millions of specific device sales, Black Friday Amazon Echo deals stand out as the most powerful sales tool in the mega-retailer’s arsenal.

Best Black Friday Amazon Echo deals we saw last year

The easiest way to explain the bargain you can expect in this year’s Amazon Echo Black Friday deals is to give examples of deals from last year. Among the key Black Friday Amazon Echo deals to track are the deals for the most recent generation of the Amazon Echo Dot. During 2020 Echo Dot Black Friday deals included 62% off the Amazon Echo Dot Gen 3 ($18 instead of $50), 40% off the Echo Dot Gen 4, 40% off the Echo Dot Gen with Clock, and $33% off the Echo Dot for Kids Gen 4. There were also loads of deals in which you got a free Echo Dot when you purchase another Amazon Echo product or a third-party smart home device.

We saw the same aggressive price cuts with Echo Show 5, Echo Show 8, and Echo Show 10 Black Friday deals in 2020. Echo Show 5 deals were 50% off, or just $45. The then-current Echo Show 10 price was cut as low as $130, down from the usual $230 and the Echo Show 8 Black Friday deals had price cuts just over 50% to $64, $66 less than the usual $130 list price. As with the Echo Dots, Amazon also bundled Echo Show 5 and Echo Show 8 smart displays with complementary smart home devices from other manufacturers.

Many other Amazon Echo devices had deep discounts in the Black Friday Amazon Echo deals lineup, but the size of their discounts often depending on popularity, generation, age, and inventory levels.

The key to understanding why Amazon takes such deep cuts with Black Friday Amazon Echo deals is to understand the role of Amazon Echo Dot smart speakers and Echo Show smart displays in the entire Amazon Alexa-compatible smart home platform.

Both the Echo Dots and Echo Shows are gateway products for the Alexa world. If you want to hook up and control an Alexa-compatible robot vacuum cleaner, security camera set, doorbell, smart kitchen appliances, and more, you need an easier and convenient way to issue the Alexa voice commands that make the platform so appealing. You can give the commands to an Echo Dot in the room and you don’t even need to be close.

If there’s any element of video or graphic content involved, an Amazon Echo Show performs identically to an Echo Dot, but also adds a display with a camera so you can view a recipe, watch a news clip, stream video, or have a two-way video call.

If Echo Dot smart speakers and Echo Show smart displays are cheap, people will buy them in multiples. Not only does that give Amazon greater sales volume for the Echo Dot and Show devices, but it expand the potential market for all the other Alexa-compatible products that Amazon makes and sells and that thousands of third-party manufacturers want to sell. Amazon may lose a bit on the actual manufacturing cost of the Echo Show smart displays, for example, but the extra revenue from licensees, from Amazon’s own streaming video content, and many other compatible devices and content sources gives Amazon a lot of money to make up for selling the gateway products cheaply.

What Black Friday Amazon Echo deals we expect to see this year

We’re hoping to see launch deals for the new Echo Show 15 introduced at this fall’s Amazon Showcase during Black Friday 2021, and that may or may not happen. However, we will for sure see Echo Dot Black Friday deals, Echo Show 8 Black Friday deals, Echo Show 10 Black Friday deals, and more. Amazon’s newest Echo and Alexa-compatible devices lean toward even smarter and capable than earlier devices, but we believe the bread and butter of the Amazon Echo line will continue to be Amazon Echo smart speakers and Echo Show smart displays.

Amazon Echo Dot Black Friday deals for the 3rd and 4th generations of the smart speakers will very likely include 50% to 60% off original list prices. The greater discount will be for the earlier model. Sometimes the difference in price is so great that the fairly minimal difference between the generations makes up for a few extra functions you might not use anyway. Good research helps, however, so if you think you might settle for an earlier generation Amazon Echo Dot, Amazon Echo Show, or any of the Amazon Echo products, be sure to check out all the Amazon Echo devices ahead to time to understand the advantages in the newer models.

We’ll also see aggressive discounts on Amazon Echo Show smart displays. If the Echo Show 15 does appear during Black Friday 2021, maybe it will be cut to $200 from its $250 list price, but don’t expect a lower price — it could happen, but I wouldn’t count on it. The Echo Show 5, Echo Show 8, and Echo Show 10 should all come in with discounts approaching if not greater than 50% off.

There may be other deals on Amazon Echo devices such as the larger Amazon Echo speakers that are sitting on shelves. Many of the larger speakers have advanced audio capability but limited buyers. Rather than keep the entertainment or productivity devices on shelves, or robot-pickable bins, Amazon will likely want to move them out and you could see some incredible deals. Caveat emptor if you might not actually use the less common device.

Should you buy an Amazon Echo on Black Friday or Cyber Monday?

For certain you’ll find Black Friday Amazon Echo deals the carry on to Cyber Monday with the same prices, but we don’t recommend waiting for Cyber Monday to make a planned purchase for two reasons. One, the prices won’t go down on Amazon Echo Black Friday deals on Cyber Monday, so there’s no savings advantage. Two, even Amazon with its many vast, distributed distribution centers can run low or run out of inventory on specific products — we’ve seen it happen year after year. So while there will be some, maybe a lot of the same Black Friday Amazon Echo deals available for immediate shipping on Cyber Monday, it could happen that the single Amazon Echo Black Friday deal you wanted is out of stock.

Another inventory-related factor that we’ve also see happen in each of the past few years is that Amazon will still take your order for an Amazon Echo Black Friday deal to hold your price, but the expected shipping date could be weeks or even months in the future. If you don’t care when you actually receive the device as long as you get it at the Black Friday Amazon Echo deal price, then it’s not an issue. But if you would rather not wait, don’t order. Amazon won’t charge your card until they ship, regardless, and you can always cancel the order before it ships or either refuse or return the shipment when it arrives, but why put up with the hassle?

Black Friday Amazon Echo deals FAQ

We don’t have inside information from Amazon nor have we seen price lists ahead of the sales event. However, while no one denies that Amazon is a market disrupter that continues to challenge and change conventional retailers and retailing, Amazon also makes a lot of money by sticking with sales strategies that work for it. Amazon’s own-brand strategy has proved tremendously effective at drawing shoppers to the website before and during huge sales events.

Will the Amazon Echo Dot be on sale on Black Friday?

Amazon Echo Dot Black Friday deals will definitely be part of Black Friday 2021. In recent past Black Fridays Amazon has dropped the price of current model Echo Dots as much as 60%. Amazon and other smart home brand manufacturers have also bundled a free Echo Dot with other devices such as smart door locks, security lights, and even Alexa-compatible kitchen appliances. So yes, there will be plenty of Amazon Echo Dot Black Friday deals this year. We may also see Echo Dot price cuts of up to 50% in the week or two leading up to Black Friday, but then the price should drop another step to help drive shoppers to all of the Black Friday Amazon Echo deals.

The Echo Dot is the mainstay of the Amazon Alexa smart home device universe. Because the Dot is the key to using your voice to operate literally thousands of Alexa-compatible smart home devices, Amazon’s strategy of selling the Echo Dot at a relatively low price with sales that draw millions of shoppers is a winning strategy for the entire smart home platform.

Will the Amazon Echo Show be on sale on Black Friday?

The Amazon Echo Show Black Friday deals will also draw shoppers to the website. Amazon is likely to offer the best deals ever for the Echo Show 5 and Echo Show 8 (first and second generations) and Echo Show 10 (three generations). Because you can get up to 50% off the Echo Show first generation models original prices fairly often during the year — not just during Black Friday and Prime Day — we expect those prices to fall even more for the early models. The second generation (Show 5 and Show 8) and third generation (Show 10) will also be discounted, perhaps t0 prices no lower than 50% off their original price.

If the Echo Dot is the voice command key to the Alexa smart home platform, the various Echo Show models add the crucial video element. You can look up recipes, watch news clips, make video calls, and, especially with the larger format displays, watch streaming media. Amazon uses its massive sales volume to keep its costs low which allows it to sell the Echo Show devices at relatively low prices.

Should you wait until Black Friday to buy an Amazon Echo?

There is no question Black Friday Amazon Echo deals will have the cheapest prices of the year. If you’re thinking of buying a bunch of Echo Dot smart speakers or Echo Show smart displays, for example, for yourself or as gifts, that’s the best reason to hold off until Black Friday to make your purchases. If, however, you want and maybe believe you need an Amazon Echo Dot, an Amazon Echo Show, or any of the Amazon Echo devices earlier for whatever reason, the regular prices, especially of the Echo Dot and Echo Show 5, are so low, you could be cheating yourself out of the benefits of the devices.

One compromise strategy, especially if a bulk buy is in your future, is to buy the least number of essential devices now and then stock up with the rest of your list during Black Friday.

One note of caution: Once Amazon sets its price for the Echo devices at the beginning of Black Friday, it doesn’t lower them — at least it hasn’t lower prices of Black Friday Amazon Echo deals during the sales event in the past. So if you know what you need and want, buy it or them early. If you wait the prices won’t drop, but the shipping and delivery dates may slip if demand hits unprecedented levels (as it has in the past). In the worst case, if you wait too long, the devices you want may sell out, even for delayed shipping dates and it might be another 4 to 6 months before they’re available again.

And finally, another reason not to dawdle. When the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales end (at the end of a specific day, which Amazon will announce), the prices all go right back to the original full list prices the next minute. Amazon takes sales durations seriously because that way their customers have level playing ground. An Echo Dot still on sale for, say, $25 at 11:59 P.M. on the last day of the sale will cost the original $50 list price at 12:01 A.M. Napping to look for last-minute deals may not be such a great idea after all.

Editors’ Recommendations