Amazon Prime Day 2023 arrives on July 11 and 12. Once again, the two-day sale is back to its traditional time.
Prime Day offers thousands of exclusive sitewide discounts for up to two days to Prime members. The service costs £7.99 / US$14.99 per month (or £79 / $139 for the year), but you might be able to try Prime for free.
Over the years, Prime Day has earned a reputation for offering the best discounts on a wide variety of products, including all the tech we love such as smartphones, laptops, smartwatches, audio , game consoles, etc. But it’s also generated a bit of skepticism, with people wondering if the deals are as good as they look. So, is it really worth the hype?
We answer important questions ahead of Prime Day 2023, plus highlight a few things to keep in mind if you’re wondering if Prime Day is worth it.
Will Prime Day 2023 be worth it? Are you actually going to save money?
Prime Day offers discounts on hundreds of thousands of products. Will all of them appeal to you? Definitely not. And sometimes Amazon’s Prime Day discounts can be only slightly higher than pre-sale prices, which is why you need to do a little research to make sure you’re getting the best deals available. We’ll show you how below.
But there are some really good deals to be had, if you know where to look.
Is Prime Day the best place for discounts?
Amazon was perhaps once the go-to destination for the lowest price – the company was notoriously unprofitable for decades by choice, focusing on long-term growth rather than short-term profits. The strategy helped the brand cement itself in the public consciousness as the obvious place for the lowest price. But that may not be the case anymore.
While we expect all sorts of discounts on Prime Day, other retailers will also be competing for customer attention: the battle is on. What we suggest is that if you spot a product for sale on Amazon, you check other sites before buying.
Over the past two years, Currys has matched Amazon’s prices on more occasions than we can count. Currys often promotes free next day delivery (usually with the code FREENEXTDAYDELIVERY), which effectively gives you the main benefit of Amazon Prime, but without the added cost of a subscription.
A Prime membership of course gives you plenty of other benefits throughout the year, such as Prime Video, Prime Music, Prime Reading – but if free shipping is your main deciding factor for shopping on Amazon, make sure to also consult other options.
But if you’re looking for Ring or Kindle devices — which are, after all, Amazon products — the Prime Day sale is the best place to find them. The discounts on technology from these brands, especially on bundles, can be huge. You’ll need to have a Prime subscription and be ready to act fast when you spot a really good deal: they sell out fast.
And, while Amazon offers competitive pricing year-round on other popular tech brands, especially Fitbit, we’ve seen other retailers outperform Amazon lately. Both AO and KRCS have outperformed Amazon on iPad deals in the past.
How do I know if the Prime Day discount is real?
Tracking, tracking and tracking.
Amazon is notorious for varying prices. It’s no different on Prime Day, when supplies can run low or change frequently. A price you see on a popular device in the morning may be completely different in the afternoon.
You may also see a price increase immediately before Prime Day, to make the sale discount appear more dramatic than it is. In other words, you’ll still get a discount, but it might not be as big as it seems.
That is why it is useful to know the average prices and the usual discounts that may appear throughout the year. Because while you can expect a wide range of deals on Prime Day, whether you’re getting the best the price will require a bit of leg work.
Fortunately, there are tools to help you. CamelCamelCamel, for example, lets you view price history on any Amazon product just by plugging in the URL. The site shows you the current, highest and lowest price on an extensive product database. Write them down so you know what price to beat when Prime Day begins.
Looking at the Google Pixel 7 for example (our current top-rated smartphone), CamelCamelCamel shows that the lowest price on the 128GB configuration was £464.12 at the end of March 2023. That’s the price to beat if you hope to smash one for less on Prime Day.
Foundry
The Keepa browser plugin is another useful tool that lets you see price history right on the product page on Amazon. You can see it in action in the image below for the price history of the Oral-B iO9 electric toothbrush. You can also use it to sign up for alerts when a product drops below a certain price.
Foundry
How can you keep track of all offers?
Now is a good time to sign up for relevant newsletters, which will likely get notified in advance of big discounts and send emails when they drop.
You can also bookmark this page for quick access to the best Prime Day deals. We’re constantly looking for the best prices and deals in our deals coverage throughout the year.
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