prime day
Amazon Prime Day 2018 is almost here. A picture taken on Dec. 28, 2016 in Vertou, Western France, shows the logo of US electronic commerce and cloud computing company Amazon. Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images

In 10 days, the floodgates will open and Amazon’s latest iteration of Prime Day will start. The annual sales event gives customers access to numerous discounts on popular products. It starts soon, but there is still plenty of time to get set up and be prepared for the coming avalanche of 2018 deals.

Amazon Prime Day is basically Black Friday, but in the summer and only for one retailer. It just happens to be a massive retailer that can quickly ship almost any kind of item to most of the world. Here are a few important things to know about the upcoming promotion.​

Free Amazon Members Need Not Apply

As its name suggests, Prime Day discounts only apply to Amazon Prime members. The same subscription that gets customers the keys to free shipping, an extensive video streaming library, and Whole Foods discounts is required to take advantage of the Prime Day promotion.

Amazon Prime is available for $12.99 per month, but there is a 30-day free trial for anyone who wants to give it a temporary shot.

When Is Amazon Prime Day?

This year's Prime Day starts at 3 p.m. EST on July 16 and runs through 11 p.m. EST on July 17, according to USA Today. Again, it is only for a little more than a day, so anyone wanting to take advantage of the many deals on display will need to act quickly.

That said, there are actually a handful of deals available before the official start of Prime Day. These include discounted memberships on Amazon services like Amazon Music and Audible. The pre-Prime Day deals can be found on the Prime Day page, which will be prominently displayed on Amazon until the promotion ends.

prime day
Amazon Prime Day 2018 is almost here. A picture taken on December 28, 2016 in Vertou, western France, shows the logo of US electronic commerce and cloud computing company Amazon. Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images

What Kind Of Deals Will Be Available?

All kinds, to put it bluntly. Amazon Prime Day will give customers a chance to get products for just about every aspect of life for less money than usual. Amazon will, of course, offer deep discounts on its own tech products, like the Echo Show, which got $100 chopped off its normal price in the lead-up to Prime Day this year.

Food, furniture, clothing, kitchenware, electronics, video games and more will get heavy discounts as part of Prime Day, if the last few years of the promotion were any indication.

Amazon even put together a handy shopping guide to show customers how to keep track of all the deals and take advantage of the ones they like.