Dive Brief:

• Ahead of its Amazon Prime Day shopping event, Amazon released its holiday gift guides for toys, electronics, home goods and other categories, the company announced on Monday.

• Customers can shop using Alexa prompts such as, "Alexa, give me holiday gift ideas," the company said. The e-commerce giant is offering eligible Prime members with an Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card or Amazon Prime Store Card 10% back on certain items between Oct. 5 and Oct. 12 across its electronics, home and toy gift guides.

• The company highlighted products from U.S.-based small businesses including a curated selection of items chosen by celebrities like Jessica Alba, Ayesha Curry and Arianna Huffington, per its press release. Amazon's 2020 fashion gift guide also features big-name brands like Savage X Fenty, Adidas and Levi's. 

Dive Insight:

It's not clear how this year's holiday season will play out, but retailers are already preparing to serve customers despite the pandemic's shopping disruptions. Amazon notably pushed back its Prime Day shopping event to October, and Target and Walmart have introduced their own shopping events this month, too. Last year, almost half (42%) of consumers planned to purchase all or a majority of their gifts through Amazon, a report from Episerver found. 

Per a BlackFriday.com and SurveyGizmo survey, half of consumers plan to buy clothes this holiday season and 39% will purchase home goods and smart devices. Anticipating the season ahead, and its own sales event, Amazon released new Echo and Fire TV Stick devices in late September. 

Overall, the predictions for the end of 2020 aren't that optimistic. Deloitte projects holiday sales growth will reach between 1% and 1.5%. And despite any recovery the economy has made during the pandemic, consumer spending growth could be hindered by lawmakers' inability to pass another stimulus bill, the National Retail Federation predicts.