Beware: Amazon Prime Day Deals Aren't Always All They're Cracked Up To Be
Did you know the best shopping deals around the winter holidays like Christmas actually happen in the weeks, or even months, following the infamous Black Friday shopping extravaganza? And yet still, many consumers splurge on Black Friday, viewing it as the de facto shopping day to save. Old habits die hard and that opinion is largely based on Black Friday's reputation for bargains from prior years. Well, virtually everything written in those last two sentences could be applied just as equally to retail giant Amazon's Prime Day, which has been a thing since 2015.
Actually, Prime Day isn't even just a single day anymore. Rather, it's morphed into a two day event. In 2024, those dates are Tuesday, July 16, and Wednesday, July 17. In the past, some Amazon Prime Day deals were leaked even before Prime Day officially started in order to entice eager shoppers. As well, expect competing retailers like Best Buy, Target, and Walmart to release their own aggressive sales to rival Prime Day.
Everything from clothing to small appliances to electronics will be discounted, with some deals disappearing in mere hours or even minutes, only to be replaced with a tantalizing new offer. In fact, there are so many supposed deals to sift through that it can be overwhelming to verify if Prime Day pricing actually represents a great savings or not. Especially if your potential purchase is a bit of an impulse and you don't have prior knowledge of its price range. That's seldom a good strategy.
First, you'll need a Prime membership
In order to take maximum advantage of Prime Days, it only stands to reason you'll need to be an Amazon Prime member. In the past, a Prime membership mostly revolved around getting free, faster shipping. Nowadays, Prime also bundles free entertainment, including the Prime Video streaming service, millions of songs and podcasts on Amazon Music, and a free Grubhub+ subscription.
An Amazon Prime membership presently costs $14.99 per month or $139 per year, assuming you don't qualify for any discounts, like being a college student or receiving financial assistance from the government. Money Digest has its own opinion about whether Amazon Prime is actually worth the cost, but if you want to take advantage of Prime Days without spending one cent on membership, there's a hack for that.
The trick is signing up for a free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime, which includes full access to the online retailer's Prime Day deals. Just be mindful you can't use the same email address that's already been used for a previous free Prime trial. As well, make sure to cancel by the end of the 30 days — assuming you want to cancel — or else Amazon will begin charging you. With that in mind, it's worth considering if jumping through this hoop is worthwhile. Especially if another retailer is offering a similar deal on the item of your dreams, without need for the requisite Prime membership.
Verify deals with shopping tools
Prime subscription secured, let's dive into how to identify legitimately good Prime Day deals. To begin, shoppers should realize that some items advertised on Amazon's website are sold by Amazon itself, while other goods are sold by third-party merchants. It's the latter that requires particular attention.
According to a 2022 study published in the journal Marketing Science, unscrupulous third-party sellers may inflate the base price of an item, only to slash that price by a large percentage to give the illusion of a deal. For example, an item that usually sells for $50 is inflated to a price of $100 prior to the sale. Then, an attention-getting 50% discount is applied, lowering the price to the same $50 the item usually sells for. That's hardly worth clamoring for.
To ensure you're getting a bargain on Prime Day deals, you can manually check the item's price at other retailers by doing a quick price-discovery investigation using your favorite search engine. As well, the site camelcamelcamel tracks the prices of millions of different items sold on Amazon, so you can verify that the Prime Day price is indeed the lowest in recent history.
Note, camelcamelcamel also offers a free browser extension that serves a similar function without needing to leave Amazon's website. Other browser extensions, like PayPal Honey, can also save you money with coupons and price comparisons, both on Amazon and its competitors. Now go out and nab those Apple AirPods or KitchenAid mixer of your dreams.