How to spot a good Amazon Prime Early Access deal — make the most of Prime Day 2
The Amazon Prime Early Access Sale (aka Prime Day 2 or Prime Day October) is here, and we’ve got some handy tips to help you find a good deal.
It’s going to be a big week of offers leading into a big month with Black Friday awaiting us at the end of November. There will be a lot of savings and the last thing we want is for you to choose the wrong deal and regret it.
So I’ll give you some insider knowledge. From this writer with a penchant for good deals, here’s what I use to find the crème de la crème worth buying.
Amazon is the undisputed champion of upsells. The product pages are littered with various other recommendations to add to what should just be a simple purchase, and it’s easy to fall down a rabbit hole without proper planning – resulting in increased damage to your bank balance.
We’re all feeling the need right now, but that shouldn’t stop you from making major upgrades to your technology. Write a list of things you need/want to buy and stick to it throughout the sale period, or use Amazon’s Wishlist feature if you’re not my age!
Based on what we hear I am 99% confident that what you wrote will be discounted. But in the absolute worst case scenario that it isn’t, there’s always Black Friday!
Check out our deals hubs
I would be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to mention the incredible work behind the scenes to find and curate the best deals that are worth your hard earned cash.
Our team works around the clock, scouring the far corners of the web to find the biggest and best savings to take advantage of. So if you’d rather skip the legwork of finding deals, let us do it. Bookmark the following hubs:
There’s a lot more, but I don’t want this to become a huge bulleted list!
Embrace the Camelizer
This deal might look like a big savings in the here and now, but how does it compare historically? Sometimes retailers are guilty of being pretty sneaky with their sales and giving you what appears to be a good deal but is actually a fraction of the huge discount that was on offer a few months ago.
What is the solution? Allow me to introduce you The Camelizer. Just open the relevant product page and click on the Chrome extension icon to open a graph showing you exactly how much it’s cost over the past few months.
This is very helpful in giving you a better insight into the price development. In return, you’ll be making some educated guesses about when it’ll return to its lowest price point.
Check the specifications
If something sounds too good to be true, there’s a pretty good chance it is. Look beyond that overly wordy product title (usually to hit every possible search term on Amazon) and scroll down to take a closer look at what you’re actually looking to buy.
I found a good example of this last year that was part of a handy guide to spotting fake black friday deals. Sometimes brands use the “cover it all” terminology in their product name and bullet points (e.g. you might be looking at a non-OLED version of a laptop, but the name is inherited from an OLED configuration of the same system).
Other times, brands just don’t care and use every SEO trick in the book to appear higher in Amazon search results, even if the name isn’t representative of what you’re getting. Let me just say it doesn’t mean that everyone product is cheating on you. In fact, most deals will be legitimate with a name that accurately reflects what you’re getting.
But as someone who has been burned before, it is always good to do your homework and be 100% sure you are not being scammed.
Check out the competition
Just because the price is cheap on Amazon doesn’t mean it isn’t cheaper elsewhere. A good example would be Dell, which tends to do bigger and better sales on its own laptops than Amazon ever does.
Also ours secret Dell discount code valid until the end of October, so who knows! You may be able to get an extra 5% off the price.
So if you find a good deal, be sure to check out other retailers and the brand’s own online store before hitting ‘buy’.