NEW YORK — Amazon said Wednesday that it will hold its annual Prime Day over two days in June this year, the earliest it has ever held the sales event.

Typically, Amazon holds Prime Day in July. Amazon has said it was holding it earlier due to the Olympics, which is scheduled to start next month and take people’s attention away. Last year, Amazon postponed Prime Day to October because of the pandemic and used the sales event to kickoff holiday shopping early.

This year, Prime Day will be held from June 21 to June 22.

Amazon started the sales event in 2015 as a way to get people to sign up for its $119 a year Prime membership, which gets shoppers faster shipping and access to the deals.