Jessica Teich, Good Housekeeping’s Products and Reviews Editor, joins Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade with Alexis Christoforous and Brian Sozzi to discuss the bests deals on Amazon Prime Day 2020, mistakes to avoid while shopping and what we should look out for from other retailers like Target and Walmart.

Video Transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: I think we can all agree the pandemic will make this a very weird holiday shopping season. From earlier deals to compressed shipping windows, consumers would be wise to shop now instead of December 24. But if you do get all your shopping done on Prime Day, does that mean Black Friday is no longer a thing?

Jessica Teich, she's "Good Housekeeping's" products and Reviews Editor and here with-- is here with us now. Jessica, good to see you this morning. The deals are out there. Prime Day, Target, and Walmart all over the websites this morning. Is this going to be one of the best holiday seasons in the past 10 years just to get a great deal?

JESSICA TEICH: Hi. Good morning. Thank you for having me. I think it's a really interesting question. I mean, is Prime Day the new Black Friday? One thing is for sure is that Prime Day is absolutely changing the way that we're shopping. I mean, we've never seen a Prime Day this time of year. Typically, it's mid-July.

And the fact that we are now bumping up against Black Friday, we're about a month or so out of Black Friday, I think that this is the unofficial official start to holiday shopping, which is pretty smart considering what you mentioned about the short shipping windows. I mean, we've seen what happens with a lot of people ordering things at once. So yes, this is definitely going to be the longest holiday shopping season we have seen.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: What about what people are buying, right? I mean, I'm hearing air fryers are big right now-- I haven't gotten one, but I think-- I have to, because too many people have said it's amazing-- work-from-home products. I mean, what-- are electronics going to be as big as they usually are? We know that Apple's coming out with its new iPhones in just a couple of hours. So what do you see as being sort of the must-have items that people are going to be looking for deals on?

JESSICA TEICH: Yeah, Alexis, you're definitely right that air fryers are the thing right now. People are shopping for little things around the home and big things around the home that are going to make their lives easier. So in the kitchen, small appliances like Instant Pots, which are 50% off today, air fryers, which we've seen great deals on. You can get a Chefman Air Fryer for 30% off today.

Work-from-home staples, absolutely. Electronics, to answer your question, are a huge, huge big-ticket item for Prime Day, and there are a lot of great savings to be had. People are starting to buy AirPods, which are $50 off today, Apple Watches up to $200 off today. And we're really seeing people make investments on bigger-ticket items that are going to improve their day-to-day. And we're also seeing a lot of gifting happening today.

BRIAN SOZZI: Are small businesses missing out here?

JESSICA TEICH: They could be if you think about Prime Day in its traditional sense. But what Amazon has done this year is they've curated a lot of different gift pages. So not only can you shop by price range and by personality, but Amazon also has this great landing page now where you can drill down by small businesses in your area.

So you can look through the Pacific Northwest or the Northeast and choose small businesses that way. You can shop from women-owned, Black-owned, family-owned businesses. So I think Amazon has really made it easy to support the smaller underdogs this season.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: What can you do if you don't want to miss a deal, but you also don't want to spend all day online? Is there-- are there tips that you can share with us as to how you can be alerted or know that what you want is on sale right now?

JESSICA TEICH: Mm-hmm. The best thing that you can do going into a sale, I mean, whether it's Black Friday or Prime Day, is make a wish list ahead of time. And Amazon has capability that you can be alerted when the item that you want is on sale. So if you haven't done it yet, you can do that now.

And to really ensure that you are getting the best price on the item that you want, you can use a third-party site to track pricing. My favorite is camelcamelcamel. That's three camels. And you can just paste in the URL, and you can see how your product has fluctuated over time. So sometimes that great deal might not be as great as you think it was.

Also, keep an eye out on sales and deals throughout this entire week. In years past, we have seen that Prime Day sales, even though it's marketed as a two-day event, have extended further into the week. And lastly, make sure you're looking at competitor websites. Prime Day is a big deal, and you can find amazing deals on Amazon. But a lot of other retailers like Walmart, and Best Buy, Kohl's, Bed Bath and Beyond are all hosting sales, as well, this week.