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Amazon is a vast e-commerce landscape, and with Prime Day spanning a full four days this year, shopping the event could easily become a full-time job. Luckily for you, it is a full-time job for us. We’re constantly scouring the web to find the best products and deals that are actually worth it, including deals on basics, audio gear, and more.
Between deals that are too good to be true and discounts that seem more substantial than they are, it’s all too easy to get duped into paying more for something you don’t need. That’s why we wrote this guide to shop smarter and actually save money during Prime Day.
When Is Prime Day?
Prime Day runs from July 8-11, but many of the best deals start early. This is the first year Prime Day has turned into a weeklong event, following previous years when it spanned two days.
Get a Free Membership
If you don’t have an Amazon membership, you can get a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime to take advantage of the deals, and cancel if you decide it’s not for you. While many deals during Prime Day require a Prime membership, not all of them do.
Compare Retailers
Amazon doesn’t always have the best prices, and if you prefer to shop elsewhere, you can often get Prime Day-level deals from other retailers on the same products, including from places like Target and Walmart. And while Amazon Prime is handy for a lot of things, other retailers have better selections of categories, like clothes. Nordstrom’s Anniversary Sale, for example, starts July 12.
Check the Seller
It’s easy to assume that everything you buy on Amazon comes from Amazon, but the retailer hosts thousands of third-party sellers, not all of which are reputable. You can check a seller’s rating by clicking on their name under the “add to cart” button. In general, we find it safest to shop directly from Amazon.
Track Prices
It’s also a good idea to use a price history tracker. Amazon will sometimes artificially inflate a product’s list price to make a deal seem better than it is. Tools like Keepa, available as a browser extension, can track the historical prices of products on Amazon.
CamelCamelCamel also offers an extension called The Camelizer, which can tell you the historical price of an item that you’re looking at. If you’re shopping for a specific item, and want alerts when it goes on sale, you can set up an alert using CamelCamelCamel’s price-drop tool, which will email you when your tracked item goes on sale.
CamelCamelCamel and Keepa are handy, but they’re only for Amazon (and in the case of Keepa, eBay). If you want to track prices on other retailers during the sale’s event, you can use Google Chrome’s price tracking tool, which automatically alerts you to discounts simply by bookmarking the product.
And if you simply want our professional opinion on what to buy, we’ve rounded up a handful of discounts below, or you can check out our guide to the best Prime Day deals.
