Finding the Best Deals on Amazon Prime Day

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Amazon will kick off its third annual Black-Friday-in-July shopping event, Amazon Prime Day, on Monday night. The sale will run through the end of Tuesday, July 11.

After an inauspicious start in 2015—some Twitter critics likened the random assortment of bargain items to a garage sale—the company retooled its mix last year. In 2017, Amazon says, Prime will offer a longer sale period, with more and better bargains.

Though it’s still too early to list many specific deals, it appears that TVs will be a major focus for Amazon. The company says it sold more than 90,000 TVs during last year’s event and hopes to surpass that mark this year.

Amazon says it will have more TV deals this time around, plus larger inventories of the sets it promotes. 

So far, we’ve heard about only one of the TVs going on sale, an Element 4K Ultra HD TV Amazon Fire TV Edition, and neither the screen size nor the pricing has been announced. The Element is the first TV we’ve seen that uses the Amazon Fire TV streaming platform as its smart-TV service. 

We currently have this set in our TV labs for testing; we’ll be able to talk about its performance by Prime Day. 

One important note: To participate in the sales event, you need an active Amazon Prime membership. A $99-per-year subscription gets you free two-day shipping, access to Amazon Prime streaming video and music services, plus other benefits such as free photo storage and a Kindle lending library. But you can get in on the shopping action using a free 30-day Amazon Prime trial.

Best Deals Could Be on Amazon Products

One thing that will definitely be bigger is the length of the event, which kicks off at 6 p.m. Monday, July 10, for those on the West Coast (9 p.m. on the East Coast). That means there will be a total of 30 hours of shopping, with new deals emerging as often as every 5 minutes. Additionally, some deals announced during Prime Day will be extended through July 17. Also, Amazon is leading up to the event with theme-based deals for Amazon Video, Amazon Essentials, and Amazon Reading.

“Every part of our business is working to deliver more deals for a record number of shoppers,” Greg Greeley, vice president of Amazon Prime, said in a statement announcing this year’s event. “This year’s Prime Day is too big for 24 hours, so we’re giving Prime members 30 hours to shop.”

In the electronics area, we’re anticipating that the best deals will be on the assortment of Amazon’s own products, such as the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Tap, and Echo Show, plus the Fire TV streaming players. Last year headphones were also a big draw, with the company selling more than 200,000 sets during the event, including models from many top brands, such as Beats, Bose, and Sennheiser.

Amazon has already announced sales on several portable Bluetooth speakers. Normally priced between $20 and $60 and sold under the AmazonBasics brand, they will be offered with a claimed 30 to 70 percent savings. 

The Alexa Advantage

Amazon is putting Alexa voice deals front and center for Prime Day, as it has in the past. 

The company is offering more than 100 deals exclusively to voice shoppers using Alexa on an Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show, Tap, Fire TV, and compatible Fire tablets. Voice shoppers will also get a jump on other shoppers by getting early access to select Prime Day deals a full 2 hours before everyone else on July 10—so 4 p.m. PST instead of 6 p.m. To find out what’s on sale you simply ask Alexa, “What are your deals?”

Early Alexa-only deals will include a $50 price break on a Bose SoundLink Bluetooth Speaker III and $20 price drop on a Philips Hue Lightstrip Plus 2nd Generation.

If you own an Alexa device but aren’t yet a Prime member, you can score a year of Prime membership for $79, a $20 discount from the regular price, just by saying, “Alexa, sign me up for Prime.” Once the order is confirmed, you’ll have immediate access to the Prime Day sales, the 2-hour Alexa exclusive shopping window, and all the other Prime benefits.

And if you’ve never used voice shopping before, Amazon will give you a $10 credit for any orders purchased before July 10. 

Amazon Prime Shopping Tips

To get the best deals, you have to know where to look, and you need to understand Amazon’s sale jargon.

Spotlight deals focus on major brands, which means supplies often run out quickly. Lightning Deals are around only for a short time. But Prime Savings and Prime Deals typically run all day. You can find them all on the Prime Day Deals page—just click the “see details” button to find the discount amount, which is applied during checkout.

Here are a few more shopping tips:

• Download the free Amazon mobile shopping app. It lets you track and sort deals by product category. Select Today’s Deals from the pull-down menu in the top left corner of the screen, tap Upcoming to view all deals 24 hours before they are live, then tap Watch This Deal. You’ll be notified when the deals kick off. First-time users can get a $10 credit on their Amazon account.

• Use the app, then buy with your computer. The app is great for finding deals, but buying the item will go faster if you use a computer. Also, shopping on a computer will let you open multiple windows to comparison shop or check out product reviews.

• Enable 1-Click ordering. This will speed up checkout considerably because you won’t have to enter all your payment and shipping info for purchases. However, you may not be able to use it with some Lightning deals.

• Add items you want to Your List. When you see items you want, add them to Your List on a computer or mobile device. This makes the products you want easier to find, and you can get alerts when they go on sale.

• Join a waitlist. If an item you want is sold out, click the Join Waitlist button on the product page. If the item reappears from an abandoned shopping cart, you’ll get a notification on your mobile device that it’s now available.

• Do some comparison shopping. Amazon often teases some of its deals in advance. Check out prices at other retailers to see how much of a deal you’re actually getting. If you see a deal that’s about to expire, add it to your cart, then check pricing. You can also check CamelCamelCamel.com, an Amazon price-checking website, to see the item’s price history and recent price drops. Also, once Prime Day starts, revisit some competitive retailers to see whether their prices have changed. Several, including Walmart, have responded to Amazon’s sales in the past with deal events of their own.

• Check out social media. Check out Amazon's Facebook page and Twitter feed to see if there are any special deals for those that follow them, or to see if people are posting any great deals you might have missed.

Once the deals commence, we’ll be poring over the site to tell you about the best electronics deals we find. 

Editor's Note: Consumer Reports collects fees from Amazon for referring users when they shop for products through our site. We use 100% of these fees to fund our testing programs.

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