It’s Prime Day! Strategies…
It’s here!
Today (and tomorrow) is
Amazon Prime Day (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
This is genuinely an opportunity to get some great deals! However, like a lot of things in this time of consumer plenty, it can be confusing.
You’ll see tons of deals, and it’s entirely possible that you’ll feel yourself shift into a sort of predator mode, that you have to strike NOW as the zebra darts out of the scrub across the savanna. Or, you know, you just think it’s cool 😉
I’m not going to stop you from that. We expect to buy some things today.
I’m also not going to try to point out flash deals to you all day long. The nature of Prime Day has changed in the four years since it launched. The first year, there were many deals which were only available for a very short time. We hovered over the Buy button, trying to hit it at exactly the right time before they ran out.
That’s not the case now. There will be lightning deals, and some of them will sell out, but now, it’s more a matter of making a deliberate choice. Many deals have already been available, and they will be available through both days (and some will undoubtedly continue afterwards).
UPDATE: We had on the Prime Day Channel in the Amazon shopping app on our Fire TV Cube, and they announced their first special deal (a “Deal Reveal”) for a 70″ Sony TV deal for about $800 (which I think was about half off)…and it appeared to sell out in under a minute. That’s not going to be the case with most things, especially Amazon products, but it did seem to be true with this…a quick sell out.
You can find them at
Amazon Prime Day (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
or even better, in the Amazon Shopping app. That’s just going to be easier and has more functionality to alert you to deals. You can also just ask Alexa.
What do you do when you see something you want? For example:
Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote (at AmazonSmile*)
It says it’s $14.99 instead of $39.99 (63% off). This is an excellent “emergency gift”. We always keep a few things around at the holidays, in case someone shows up we weren’t expecting (such as someone having a new Significant Other). If your recipient already has one, this can still be valuable. It would also be good for a company gift exchange
If it’s a Prime Day Deal (and you’ll see a “badge” on that), you’ll also likely see a countdown for when the deal ends (as I write this, the deal ends in about 43 and a half hours).
If you are just good with the price, and don’t care whether it’s a bargain or not, go for it.
If you want to see if it is actually a good deal, an especially low price, go to
https://camelcamelcamel.com/
You can either describe the item or put in the URL (the address up in the search bar). Note that there may be different versions shown if you put in words. Also, and this is important, their current price will probably be higher than the price you are seeing on Amazon…because that price at Amazon is exclusive for
Amazon Prime (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
You need to be a Prime member to get Prime Day deals…although you can get a free trial. The odds are if you trial Prime, you’ll stick with it. Not having Prime nowadays is like not having access to a car. You can deal without it, but it certainly makes things much more convenient!
So, it shows the current price for the Fire TV Stick above as $39.99. What’s important, though, is that it shows you the price history. In this case, it goes back to January 15th…and the lowest price it has been is $29.99, so this is a great deal!
You can set a price alert at CamelCamelCamel…locate a product, and then sign up to get an e-mail (yes, you’ll be giving them your e-mail for that…you don’t have to sign up for anything to use CamelCamelCamel) when that product drops to a price you set.
That’s the shopping part. 🙂
I do want to point out that there will be many scams around Prime Day. Beware of e-mails telling you that you need to click something because your product is out of stock, or they need a confirmation, or the price changed, or they couldn’t deliver something. If you get an e-mail, ideally, go directly to Amazon to check on it.
I may try to add more specific products throughout the course of the two days, but this is where my readers can help each other. Feel free to comment on this post with deals you see. If you can, give some idea about when it will expire.
Here’s Amazon’s press release listing some of the deals:
press release
Don’t forget to use Alexa to shop! Asking Alexa for deals can be very easy, as well as using the Amazon Shopping app on your Fire TV device (they have a live Prime Day “channel”) in the app.
Also, while Prime Day is not just in the USA, the offers will be different in different markets.
Happy shopping! Oh, and if you go to Amazon Smile, you can benefit a non-profit of your choice by doing so. I’d appreciate it if you use my link to start your shopping trip:
Amazon Prime Day (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
but if you want to help someone else by going from their link, (such as a non-profit), I understand. 🙂
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Bufo’s Alexa Skills
* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. 
Shop ’til you help!
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
I Love My Kindle 