How to Shop Like a Pro During Amazon Prime Day - July 2024

Amazon Prime Day is arguably 1 of the astir confusing buying holidays successful existence. It’s not adjacent a “day”—the members-only lawsuit spans 48 hours. Amazon besides promises “millions of deals,” but the displayed discounts are often misleading—or outright false. Some deals are really disposable to radical who don’t subscribe to Prime. Add successful the frenzy of limited-time Lightning Deals and you’ve got a look cleanable for spending excessively overmuch money.

Fear not! We’re present to help. WIRED’s Gear squad is acquainted with communal buying pitfalls, and I’ve been a deals writer for astir a decade. What clip bash income commencement and end? How bash you archer whether a woody is actually a deal? We pooled our corporate cognition to get you prepared for Amazon Prime Day.

Updated June 2024: We've updated this communicative with further details astir Prime Day, which is acceptable for sometime successful July 2024.

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When Is Amazon Prime Day?

Amazon has officially announced that Prime Day volition beryllium held successful July. We believe, based connected past sales, that Prime Day 2024 volition instrumentality spot connected a Tuesday and Wednesday sometime successful the mediate of the month.

When Do Prime Day Deals Start?

The lawsuit officially begins astatine 3 americium Eastern clip and runs for 48 hours. WIRED volition screen the best Prime Day deals from some Amazon and retailers that person competing sales. Some deals and income volition statesman up of the authoritative commencement time. (We'll beryllium covering those too.)

Are Prime Day Deals Only for Prime Members?

Officially, yes. You indispensable beryllium an Amazon Prime subordinate to store for Amazon's Prime Day deals. There is simply a free 30-day proceedings available for caller accounts. (Prime rank comes with a batch of perks, and we've rounded up each of them here.) The proceedings volition fto you get successful connected the sale—just retrieve to cancel your rank to debar immoderate consequent renewal charges.

There are immoderate discounts disposable if you're not a subscriber (those deals mightiness not beryllium that great). But different major retailers similar Best Buy and Target usually clasp concurrent income during Prime-exclusive income events. Their prices are often adjacent to what Amazon is offering connected the aforesaid products, and sometimes they lucifer the price. This is simply a bully mode to instrumentality portion successful the Prime Day Sale if you don’t privation to enactment Amazon.

Walmart is launching a rival Walmart+ Plus Week income lawsuit for members, moving June 17–23, 2024. Like Amazon Prime, Walmart+ gives you escaped explicit transportation and immoderate different perks, but costs conscionable $98 per year. The deals see 20 cents disconnected a gallon of state astatine Exxon & Mobil stations nationwide, truthful you could wage disconnected your full yearly Walmart+ rank by buying conscionable 490 gallons of gas!

Is Prime Day Worth It?

It depends. For immoderate items, Prime member-exclusive lawsuit prices thin to beryllium immoderate of the lowest we spot each year. That's particularly existent for Amazon hardware, similar Kindles, Fire Tablets, Fire TV Sticks, and Echo devices, but determination are different factors to consider. Prices fluctuate passim the year, and immoderate products are discounted rather often. Even if the terms is good, a woody connected a merchandise that goes connected merchantability each the clip diminishes the wide prime of that deal.

The sheer measurement of deals promoted by Amazon during income similar Prime Day is simply a blessing and a curse. The genuinely bully discounts tin beryllium hard to pinpoint—there's truthful overmuch worldly connected merchantability that the wide enactment tin consciousness overwhelming. But there's a bully accidental that the point you privation volition beryllium connected sale. We've seen immoderate fantastic Prime-exclusive discounts successful the past, ranging from dirt-cheap Kindles to elusive terms drops connected the Nintendo Switch. The tricky portion is to find the diamonds successful the rough.

WIRED covers legitimately bully deals each twelvemonth long, including during the Prime Day event. Our tips beneath volition assistance you find those large discounts connected your own.

How Do I Know Whether a Deal Is Good?

ABC: Always beryllium checking (prices, that is). Researching an item's terms is the astir important facet of determining the prime of a discount. Don't autumn prey to deceptive selling connection and inflated MSRP prices—our tips lone instrumentality a fewer moments. The easiest measurement is to instrumentality a 2nd to Google the items you're considering truthful you tin spot the terms crossed aggregate stores.

One instrumentality we similar to usage is Camelcamelcamel, which tracks Amazon's prices implicit time. Paste the Amazon nexus oregon ASIN (found successful the Product Information conception connected the Amazon merchandise page) into Camelcamelcamel's hunt barroom and you'll beryllium capable to spot an item's lowest recorded price, its mean price, and however often the terms fluctuates. Some deals, specified arsenic Lightning Deals, are excluded from the pricing history, but it's utile to spot what an point has sold for successful the past. We besides similar Keepa, which has an hold (available for aggregate browsers) that shows the caller terms past for products straight connected the Amazon leafage truthful you don't person to unfastened a caller tab.