I’ve covered Amazon Prime Day for seven years, and I can say with certainty that the key to saving the most money during the sale is going in with a plan. This isn’t the type of event where aimlessly browsing will do you any good, so to help you prepare before it starts next Tuesday, June 23, I put together this shopping guide filled with expert-approved tips and tricks.
Below, I’m walking you through the categories that historically offer the lowest prices (with examples of early deals live now), how to evaluate deals before adding them to your cart, what you should wait to purchase until July Fourth and more. I’ll frequently share updates as Prime Day (which is from June 23 to 26) approaches, so bookmark this article for later.
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One of the reasons Amazon hosts Prime Day is to sell products from its brands across categories by majorly discounting them — think Amazon Basics and Amazon Essentials, for example. The absolute best deals, however, are on Amazon devices. Those from Blink, Ring, Fire, Kindle and Echo tend to hit their lowest prices of the year outside of Black Friday, says Stephanie Carls, a retail insights expert at RetailMeNot. In fact, prices are so low during Prime Day that I don’t recommend buying Amazon devices any other time of year.
Tech is one of the few categories where “the thing people plan to buy and the thing actually worth buying happen to be the same,” says Carls. Sales on smart home devices, earbuds, tablets, speakers, smartwatches, e-readers, laptops and more from brands like Apple, Sony, JBL, Beats, Anker and Sonos are very strong, and more than 30 percent of consumers plan to shop them, according to a recent RetailMeNot survey.
Prime Day is one of the best times of the year to upgrade your small home and kitchen appliances like vacuums, air purifiers, blenders and air fryers. I always see notable brands like Dyson, Shark, Ninja, Keurig, Breville and Nespresso mark down a handful of their most popular models.
As far as I’m concerned, you’re missing out on major savings if you don’t shop everyday essentials during Prime Day. You’ll eventually need to restock your cleaning, pets, kids and baby, health and wellness, and beauty supplies anyway, so you might as well save on them while you can, especially with inflation currently pushing up prices. Even apparel and footwear basics like socks and underwear fall under this category.
I recommend walking around your home before Prime Day and making a list of all the basics that you’re running out of so you know what to prioritize buying. Amazon also says it’s offering more fresh grocery and pantry staple deals this year.
Prime Day is closer to the beginning of the summer this year since it’s in June rather than July, making the sale an ideal time to buy warm weather-related products you can use for the next few months. Vipin Porwal, founder and consumer expert at Smarty (a platform that makes online shopping more efficient), recommends shopping for discounted swimwear, summer apparel, pool accessories and outdoor sports gear, as well as cooling appliances like air conditioners and fans.
Also, since Prime Day is happening before July Fourth and during the FIFA World Cup, you can save on anything you’ll need to host gatherings, like disposable plates and utensils, decorations, snacks and beverages.
During Prime Day, you shouldn’t buy the following:
Now that Prime Day is four days long, you have more time to shop, but the sale still runs on urgency. There’s plenty of limited-time deals that sell out quickly, so planning beforehand is crucial. Prior to June 23, do the following:
Tracking prices is one of the only ways to know whether a Prime Day deal is actually a good one. Evaluate price history graphs closely, which are available on some Amazon product pages and sites like CamelCamelCamel. They tell you whether the deal price is truly the lowest a product has dropped to in a while, or if it’s marked down from an inflated baseline. At NBC Select, we don’t consider a Prime Day deal “good” unless it’s at its lowest price in at least three months and it recently dropped in price.
Comparison shopping is important, too, says Porwal. Other big retailers are hosting June sales that overlap with Prime Day, so before you checkout, make sure items aren’t available elsewhere for a lower price. Compare shipping fees and how much cashback you can potentially earn, too.
Lightning Deals only run for a few hours, and there’s limited inventory available — once the product sells out or the deal expires, it’s gone for good. Lightning Deals, which drop as often as every 10 minutes, are some of the most lucrative discounts brands offer during Prime Day, so pay close attention to them, says Porwal. He also recommends taking note of the main deals Amazon advertises on its website’s and app’s homepage and landing pages. They tend to get the most visible placement because they’re some of the best savings opportunities.
Try to pay with a credit card that lets you earn points, rewards or cash back as you spend on Amazon.
Amazon doesn’t have a special return policy for Prime Day purchases, but you should know how long you have to return an item if needed.
The main difference between Prime Day and July Fourth deals is the categories you’ll find on sale. As I mentioned above, you’ll see the deepest Prime Day discounts on tech (especially from Amazon’s brands), small home and kitchen appliances, everyday essentials and summer-related products. But during July Fourth, you’ll see the deepest discounts on mattresses, patio furniture, grills and large home and kitchen appliances. Prime Day is also an online-only sales event while July Fourth is an online and in-store sale event — that makes sense given that the top July Fourth categories include larger, more expensive products you might want to shop for in person.
Sticking to the right categories for each of these sales is how you’ll save the most money, especially because Carls expects Amazon to lean into the categories it wins in during Prime Day instead of attempting to out-discount July Fourth. Because of this, Powal says retailers who host counter-Prime Day sales, like Target, Walmart, Best Buy and Home Depot, will likely focus on competing with Amazon in specific product categories in June and host larger sitewide sales during July Fourth.
It’s worth noting that Prime Day is happening in late June this year rather than mid-July like usual, putting it before July Fourth. Flipping the order of these sales changes the order you should buy certain products: Prime Day, the tech-centric sale, comes first, and July Fourth, the home and kitchen-centric sale comes second, says Carls. This isn’t the schedule you’re used to, so you might be tempted to add a mattress or grill, for example, to your Prime Day cart, but hold off.
No, Prime Day deals will not last through July Fourth. Prime Day and July Fourth are individual, distinct sales events. Based on the years I’ve spent reporting about Amazon, I expect the retailer to end Prime member-exclusive Prime Day discounts on June 26 and almost immediately start its July Fourth sales, which are open to all shoppers and likely weaker in the top Prime Day categories.
No, Prime Day deals aren’t likely to be worse this year due to high inflation numbers, says Vivek Pandya, the manager of Adobe Digital Insights. He expects them to be similar to what they were last year. “The online shopping space has been typically characterized by a lot of deflation, meaning discounts would get more and more aggressive each year because you’d have more and more online retailers entering it, both domestically and globally,” says Pandya. “Now, we still see better value compared to in-store shopping, but there aren’t stronger discounts year to year — they kind of hold the line where it was the year prior.”
Major retailers host their own summer sales to compete with Amazon, and this year, they might be more aggressive than usual due to Prime Day’s June date, says Porwal. “It opens an opportunity for major retailers to finish the quarter strong and beat an expected slow spending summer, which could be good for consumers as well if prices continue to rise at levels we haven’t seen in a long time,” he says.
Here are the Prime Day-counter sales we know about so far — I’ll keep you updated as I learn about more.
At NBC Select, we work with experts who have specialized knowledge and authority based on relevant training and/or experience. We also ensure that all expert advice and recommendations are made independently and with no undisclosed financial conflicts of interest.
I’m a reporter at NBC Select who has covered Amazon since 2020. I write about the retailer’s biggest sales (Big Spring Sale, Prime Day and Prime Big Deal Days) and frequently update NBC Select’s Prime membership guide. I also regularly appear in related NBC News NOW and TODAY segments. For this article, I spoke to three experts and shared advice I’ve learned first-hand over the years.
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