Amazon just announced that its Amazon Prime Day 48-hour sales event will start at 3 am ET/12 am PT on Tuesday, July 13, and go through Wednesday, July 13 with savings on 2 million items.
Amazon starts with early deals on its own products and several early prime day deals can be shopped now. During the main Prime Day event expect deals from a wide number of categories including major TV brands, Smart Home devices, Fashion, Beauty & Wellness, Furniture, Pet Supplies, Tools, Fitness equipment, and more.
How to work the deals. Be fast.
Prime Day deals can expire in minutes and some deals conclude when inventory is gone. Inside the Prime Day event are promotions called Spotlight Deals, Gold Box Deals of the Day, and Lighting Deals. I rank these in order of urgency.
The Lighting Deals almost always offer the best prices and last for small window of time or when sold out – sometimes even just minutes. Even though it may look like a deal is gone, there’s a tip below that could provide an easy workaround to getting the deal anyway.
How to get a cheap Amazon Prime membership
You can still participate in Prime Day even if you’ve never been a now $14.99 a month/$139-a-year Amazon Prime customer. Here are some options to consider:
Get a 30-day Free Amazon Prime trial
Simply use the free 30-day Amazon Prime trial and remember to cancel if you don’t plan to keep it. You can get the same deals with free shipping offers during the free trial. Sign up here.
Students: Get 6 months of Amazon Prime free
If you’re a student, you can click this link to get 6 months free of Amazon Prime for students. Students will need to provide verification by providing their .edu email address. Sign up here.
Medicaid or EBT: Cheaper Amazon Prime
If you’ve got a Medicaid or EBT card, you can sign up for an Amazon Prime membership for $6.99 – almost half the cost of a typical membership. Sign up here.
Sharing an Amazon Prime Membership
If you’re living in the same household, you can share your Amazon Prime membership with your partner. Your partner will get the same Amazon Prime benefits as you for no additional cost. In order to do this, once you’re logged in, add your partner to your Amazon Household.
Kurt’s advice: Get organized with a list and use his Amazon Prime Day Battle Plan strategy
CyberGuy Prime Day Battle Plan tips
- Create a Wishlist on Amazon. Put on it everything you buy on a recurring basis throughout the year like dog food, light bulbs, and staple goods. Add upcoming birthdays, big-ticket items you have been holding off to buy, and get your holiday list done for Christmas gifts way ahead of time while saving huge.
- “Join Waitlist” on sold-out products you want and missed. Think it’s sold out? Maybe not. Items sitting in another shoppers cart expire if not purchased within 15 minutes. If you are on a waitlist, you could get notified that the deal is yours.
- Download Amazon smartphone or tablet app to see deals first. The app shows deals coming first and allows you to create a “Watch this deal” list to get notified when a deal is going live.
- Say “Alexa, what are your deals?” for exclusive offers. You can power through this audio form of deals by saying “Alexa, next” as they are being described to advance to the next deal. Voice shopping is a complete hassle and Amazon knows it. That’s why they are tempting us to try it with even better deals that you can find on the site.
- Compare prices at other retailers like BestBuy, Walmart, Kohls and Target since so many other sources are taking advantage of the Prime Day excitement.
Watch out for these Losing Prime Day Mishaps
- Avoid Unknown Brands that can often disappoint
- Avoid Fake Reviews by using fakespot.com Instead of adding their browser extension, just link to the search field to copy and paste an Amazon product listing. Fakespot will analyze to show a letter grade and explanation. The goal is to weed out fake reviews and identify troubled listings.
- Avoid overpaying by checking the lowest price history at camelcamelcamel site. A price history of almost every Amazon item is recorded here to show if you are really getting the lowest price.
- Avoid the Amazon Assistant browser plug-in for privacy concerns. While Amazon’s browser plug-in can make comparing items and tracking deals convenient, it also comes as a cost to your personal privacy in the way it can track your web browser activity.
How to find the best early Amazon Prime Day deals
Hop on over to our article here for 10 of the best early deals: