Amazon’s Prime Day is a feeding frenzy for bargain hunters. While it might not approach Black Friday levels of competitiveness, the very best deals go quickly, sometimes in minutes.
Even more frustrating for casual shoppers, the best deals are sometimes buried amidst a slew of other offerings—and with thousands of offers coming out over the two-day period, keeping up with the onslaught can be challenging—at best. There are a few tools, though, that can make it a bit easier.
Alexa
Amazon’s Echo devices are full of surprises, and on Prime Day that often includes some bargains for the curious. It’s worth asking “Alexa, what are my Prime Day deals?” Throughout the day to get a summary of the latest offerings. And be sure to enable voice purchasing so you can grab them immediately.
In the leadup to the event, you can also say, “Alexa, shop small business” to discover products eligible for the Spend $10, Get $10 promotion, where members who spend $10 on select small business products and brands prior to Prime Day receive a $10 credit to use during the two-day sale.
Amazon’s app
These days, there’s a decent chance you already have Amazon’s app (available for Android and iOS) on your phone. You can, though, use it to track deals throughout the day. Step one is setting up a pre-Prime Day shopping list of things you might be interested in buying. Once that’s done, go to the app’s settings menu, click notifications and toggle alerts on for “Your Watched and Waitlisted Deals”. You can also select the “Watch this deal” button on upcoming items that catch your eye.
Amazon Assistant browser extension
If you prefer to do your shopping from your laptop or desktop, this Chrome extension will send desktop notifications for deals you’re watching.
CamelCamelCamel.com
It’s easy to get caught in a buying frenzy on Prime Day and not really know if you’re getting a bargain or not. CamelCamelCamel follows the price history of all products on Amazon, letting shoppers see how close a price is to its all-time low. You can also set alerts to find out when the price of your item of interest drops to a certain point.
Deal hunting sites
One of the best tools of bargain hunters is the group-sourced deal tracking sites that are scattered throughout the net. Those are especially useful on Prime Day, though not necessarily with the most popular items. Your best choices include SlickDeals.net and Offers.com.
One other piece of advice: See something you might want? Put it in your shopping cart immediately. You’ll have time to decide without worrying that Amazon will be sold out before you make up your mind on if the savings are big enough – or if it’s something you really need.
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