The holiday shopping season starts early this year, and it starts with a traffic jam. Amazon, Target, and Walmart have all announced October sales events, and all three land in the same week, going after the same shoppers at the same time.

Amazon Prime Big Deal Days runs October 6 and 7, a 48 hour window open to Prime members with deals across more than 35 categories. New deals drop several times a day rather than all at once, which means the event rewards shoppers who check back repeatedly, and rewards sellers who have inventory and ad budget ready to support deals that might not go live until hour 30 of the event.

Target Circle Deal Days runs the same two days, October 6 and 7, with up to 40% off clothing, home, beauty, toys, and electronics for Target Circle members. Circle 360 members get a head start, with early access on October 5. Unlike Amazon's event, Target's discounts are published categories and percentages rather than deals that rotate throughout the window, which makes it easier for a shopper to plan a purchase in advance and easier for a seller to forecast which categories will see the traffic.

Walmart Deals and More runs longer than either, October 5 through 11, with up to 50% off home, 40% off tech, and 30% off toys and Halloween goods. Walmart's event is also the only one of the three that doesn't require a paid membership to access, which widens the shopper pool Walmart is pulling from even if the headline discounts look similar to the other two.

For sellers running inventory or ad budget across more than one of these channels, the overlap matters more than any single event's terms. A shopper comparing a product across Amazon and Walmart during the same week is going to see whichever listing is better stocked, better priced, and better supported with ads, not whichever platform announced its event first. Splitting attention evenly across all three isn't usually the right move either. The better question is where your catalog already converts well and where inventory is deep enough to support a surge, since an out of stock listing during an overlapping sales week loses the sale to a competitor on the other platform instead of just losing it until next week.

Walmart's longer window also changes the math. A seller who treats October 6 and 7 as the whole event and lets ad spend drop off afterward is leaving five more days of Walmart traffic on the table that Amazon and Target shoppers won't see at all.

If you're trying to figure out where to put inventory and ad budget across these three events this week, we're glad to help you sort through it.