Prime Day is less than three weeks away. Back in its ninth year, Amazon’s 48-hour event promises epic deals on everything from AirPods to Nike sneakers.
I cover deals and retail holidays for a living, and while I’m excited that Prime Day is back, I’m very skeptical of the deals we’ll see. Yes, there will be plenty of excellent Prime Day deals on July 11th (and the days leading up to it), but there will be just as many – if not more – middling deals. To be fair, that’s the case with any major retail holiday, not just Prime Day. However, I think it’s something consumers need to be careful of.
The best way to prepare for Prime Day is to make a list of the items you want to buy – or think you might want to buy – and start tracking their selling price now. To do this, I use a tool called Camel Camel Camel. (There is, too The browser extension is called Camelizer, which I find faster and easier to use). CamelCamelCamel (and Camelizer) tracks the price history of thousands of items sold on Amazon.
For example, let’s say you wanted to buy AirPods Pro 2 on Prime Day. To look at your earphone price/deal history, simply copy a file Amazon product page URL for AirPods Pro 2 and paste it into CamelCamelCamel. This price tracking site will show you the entire history of AirPods Pro 2 deals. (as in the image above). You will then be able to see that $199 was the cheapest price for the AirPods Pro 2.
Now suppose the AirPods Pro 2 are on sale for $224 on Prime Day. CamelCamelCamel will help you realize that it is a mediocre bargain and not worth buying at this price.
However, as much as I recommend CamelCamelCamel, there are some drawbacks to the tool that you should know about. First, it only tracks Amazon price history. So he wouldn’t be able to tell you that the AirPods Pro 2 sold for $189 in March at MicroCenter. Secondly, it is not always accurate. I’ve noticed that it sometimes fails to draw the lowest prices for some products. In addition, I’ve noticed that sometimes – especially around major retail holidays – price charts for some products disappear for no apparent reason. That’s all the more reason to start tracking prices now instead of waiting for the right Prime Day.
Don’t limit yourself to Amazon
In addition to CamelCamelCamel, I also recommend looking at Amazon’s main competitors. For example, Walmart Plus Week is an alternate Prime Day sale that ties in to price match or discount Amazon deals. Similarly, Best Buy will hold its annual Black Friday on sales event in July around the same time as Prime Day.
While I expect to see a lot of great TV deals on Amazon, I’ve found that Best Buy offers even lower prices on OLEDs. The retailer also has exclusive deals on specific TVs/models, such as the new Roku TVs, which rank at the top of our Best Budget TVs guide.
Bottom line: Don’t take Amazon’s word for it when they say they offer the best price on something. Do a little research now and be sure to check out competing sites on July 11th to make sure you’re getting the lowest price possible on whatever you want to buy.
[ad_2]
