In brief: Amazon has confirmed reports from earlier this year by announcing that the platform's second major shopping event will take place on October 11 and October 12. The two-day sale will offer plenty of discounts for Prime Members and run in 15 countries, including the US.

Reports that Amazon was planning a second massive sales event arrived in June, just two weeks before the tech giant's annual Prime Day. It sounded like Amazon was prepping Prime Day 2, but the company has confirmed that the less catchy "Prime Early Access Sale" will occur next month.

Amazon writes that the sale will include must-have brands like Peloton and New Balance, as well as the lowest prices of the year on select products from the likes of Caudalie, Murad, and Philips Sonicare.

The event will also include Amazon's first-ever Top 100 list, which will contain the season's most popular and giftable items. The list will feature a curated selection of some of the best deals from brands like Hasbro, iRobot, KitchenAid, and Samsung, and new deals from the list will drop during the event. There will also be the usual deep discounts on Amazon's own-brand products such as the Echo and Fire lines and other Alexa-enabled devices.

Despite concerns over the economy, job cuts, and consumers reigning in their spending, Prime Day 2022 was Amazon's biggest shopping day ever after subscribers bought over 300 million items across the two days, or 100,000 items per minute. For comparison, Prime Day 2021 saw 250 million items purchased.

Amazon increased its Prime membership cost by $20 in February, pushing it from $119 to $139 per year, while those who pay monthly started paying $14.99 instead of the previous $12.99. The firm is no doubt hoping that adding what is essentially an extra Prime Day will soften the blow of those price hikes. But with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the holiday season following soon after, it'll be interesting to see how successful Prime Early Access Sale will be compared to Amazon's most famous event.

Amazon was in the news earlier today when it was revealed a software error meant the company had miscalculated employees' compensation.