Amazon’s Big Deal Days sale returns next week, with two days of member-exclusive offers across top brands. From Tuesday 7 October, Prime members will be able to shop deals on thousands of products, from skincare and heated airers to coveted tech from Apple.
I’ve been covering the best Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day deals for seven years, so I’ve learnt a few handy tips and tricks about how to make the most of the sales. I’ve got a good eye for spotting the best savings among the sea of offers that drop on Amazon’s website, plus I’ll be sure to tell you if a deal isn’t as good as it seems.
To help you get the best deals during Amazon Prime Day, I’ve compiled a list of my top tips for shopping the sale. Before you head to the checkout, take a look to make sure you’re getting the best value for money. From spotting fake discounts to checking the price history of a product, keep scrolling for my advice on how to approach Amazon’s October Prime Day sale.
1. See if you can get an Amazon Prime free trial
The first thing to remember is you need to be a Prime member to shop the discounts on Prime Day. However, that’s not the only perk – you’ll also get free next-day delivery and often same-day delivery at no extra cost, for qualifying orders.
Amazon Prime costs £8.99 per month or £95 per year. If you’re not already a Prime member, you might be eligible for a free 30-day trial of Prime. It’s only available to Amazon customers who have never been a Prime member before or haven’t been a Prime member in the past 12 months.
If you’re between the ages of 18 and 22, you can get a six-month free trial, as well as half-price memberships, meaning you’ll pay just £4.49 instead of £8.99 per month.
2. Make a wishlist
It’s easy to get carried away during the Amazon Prime Day sale and buy things you don’t really need. Just remember that a deal isn’t a deal if you don’t actually need it.
I recommend making a wishlist of the things you’ve been eyeing up this year, as well as Christmas gifts for loved ones. For example, I’ve had my eye on the Oura ring, plus I’m on the lookout for a new Ninja air fryer. If I see significant price drops on these items, I’ll add them to my basket.
3. Compare the price of the product against other retailers
Amazon can be a little sneaky by adjusting the RRP of its products. It reportedly changes the prices on its website 2.5 million times per day, so you can never really be sure if the original price is the price the manufacturer is charging. I recommend doing a quick Google search to see how much items cost at other retailers.
For example, if I’m looking for a new iPad, and it’s currently on sale at Amazon, I’ll check Apple’s website for the original price, just so I know whether the apparent discount is legit. If it is, I’ll head to other retailers, such as Argos, John Lewis, Currys and AO.com, to make sure the iPad isn’t the same price (or cheaper) there. If it is, I might consider shopping at the other retailer if it offers better perks, such as a longer warranty or a better trade-in deal.
4. Be wary of electric toothbrush deals
Amazon is notorious for playing with the RRP of leading electric toothbrushes during sales periods. The retailer sometimes raises the RRP of an item to an exorbitant price, and then discounts it by upwards of half price, so it looks like a much better deal than it actually is.
For example, a £50 electric toothbrush might be given a new RRP of £100 in the run-up to the sale. During the sale, Amazon will then “discount” it to the original £50 price. If you’re coming to the deal that day, it looks like a huge 50 per cent discount, but you’re really paying the retail price.
Some of the more expensive brushes bounce up and down in price, spending two weeks at full price, then two weeks at half price – rinse and repeat. Again, check other retailers for the actual price of the electric toothbrush and make a call. You’ll still find good savings on Oral-B and others, they just won’t be as big as Amazon might have you think.
Read more: Best electric toothbrush offers, handpicked by a deals expert
5. Use Amazon price history tools
It’s sometimes difficult to know if a deal is exclusive to the sale. That TV or laptop you’ve been considering could have been discounted to that sale price weeks before Amazon Prime Day even started. A deal that looks great today could have been even better a few months ago, and the new sale price could even be higher than the old retail price.
To find out if a discount is actually exclusive to Prime Day, use Amazon price history tools such as Camelcamelcamel, which records price changes at Amazon. These tools give you historical data on a product’s lowest, highest and average prices, giving you an idea of whether it’s a deal you should pick up now or leave until it goes down even further.
6. Watch out for no-name brands
There’s a host of no-name brands on Amazon that churn out poorly made products, including laptops, just to exploit the Prime Day sale. These products usually have steep discounts but are not worth your hard-earned money.
It’s easy to be caught out by this because of how difficult it can be to decode the technical jargon of a laptop. We will only bring you deals on laptops that we’ve tested or that hail from well-respected brands. This applies to every product category on Amazon, but particularly so for laptops.
7. Check out our Amazon Prime Day live blog
As well as curating guides to the best Prime Day deals, we’ll also be running a rolling live blog until Wednesday 8 October. The live blog is run by a team of deals experts, who will be busy rifling through thousands of discounts to bring you the offers worth caring about.
You’ll also find more shopping tips on the live blog and even more coverage across our entire directory of Amazon Prime Day shopping guides, so stay tuned.
From air fryer bargains to mattress offers, we’re rounding up all the best Amazon Prime Day deals
