It’s not often that a major new holiday gets added to the calendar, but thanks to Amazon, we now have one. Prime Day, the annual extravaganza of discounts from the world’s biggest e-commerce platform, has expanded to become something bigger than one shop’s picked discounts. These days, many outlets use the opportunity to offer you flash sales, coupons, and exclusive deals.
Making the most out of Prime Day means finding the right shopping strategies to help you get the best combination of product and discount, and that’s what we’re here to do, with our Prime Day shopping guide.
Our Prime Day Promotions
Despite its name, Prime Day isn’t just a single day anymore. Amazon will be providing offers on 16 and 17 July, while other retailers will be working on a schedule that suits them. For example, Aspiron is offering Prime Day sales from 5 to 22 July.
Aspiron is far from alone in joining in. While it’s centered on Amazon, other retailers have realized the power and potential of Prime Day and so offer discounts in hopes of attracting shoppers away from Amazon. The hype Amazon builds around the day can help other reatilers to get attention, and this encourages them to offer deep deals. Wherever you normally shop, it’s worth shopping around in July, looking for the places that will offer the best exclusive deals for you.
Which brings us to an important issue: the difference between a good deal in general and a good deal for you.
Exclusive Deals For You
Let’s have a look at one of the many product categories available, to help make sense of this.
Say you’re looking for a vacuum cleaner. Congratulations, there are some great offers out there for Prime Day.
If you’re looking for something easy to use, you could get this cordless cleaner for only $99.99.
After something more substantial? Then there’s this bagged cannister vacuum for only $109.99.
If you’re going to have to clean a large area, then this vacuum cleaner has a 3.5L capacity and is only $109.99 in the sale.
Or if you think that a vacuum alone won’t be enough then you could get this multipurpose steam cleaner for only $129.99.
That’s a lot of options before we’ve even gone past scratching the surface. These are popular, high-value products with exclusive discounts thanks to the promotion offers for Prime Day. Each one could be a great deal for someone, and it’s tempting to snap one up just because it’s a deal. The same thing applies in countless other categories.
But you should only buy an item if it’s a great deal for you, so how do you work that out?
The Rational Shopper
All the consumer tips out there eventually boil down to one idea: rational shopping.
Around this time of year, every retailed in the market will be flinging offers out and using all the tricks in their marketing book to make them appealing to you. Cutting prices. Emphasizing important features. Dressing mundane products up in fresh packaging and free gifts you don’t actually want. Ad campaigns intruding on your online life, that somehow convince you that you want something you’d never considered before.
Rational shopping involves taking a step back and planning in advance to make rational choices instead of being influence by all the marketing and offers. It’s the best way to buy cost-effective products, by focusing on what you actually want, not what retailers are pushing on you. Without it, you could end spending far more than you meant to while still not getting what you need.
Start by working out a shopping list. What are the things you want, especially the ones that are normally too expensive? What features should they ideally have and which would be nice extras? Which ones are your top priorities?
Work out your budget – how much would you ideally spend on these products, and how high can you go if it buys you a bargain? Can you justify spending more if something will save you money in the long term?
Work out which places are most likely to offer you good deals on the products you need. It’s easy to focus on Amazon for Prime Day, but maybe a specialist retailer will offer you better options, or another e-commerce platform will have deeper discounts.
You might want to throw a wider net than usual. Some regions will have better deals than others, and cross-border shopping can be a way to get a better product for you or a better deal on the same product.
And it’s worth widening the window you shop in. With some retailers offering their deals for days or weeks around Prime Day, you might be able to grab a bargain before it sells out or after everyone else has given up.
Work through your list in order, check out all your options before you buy, and stick with your budget. That way, you can get great bargains without buyers’ regret.
Getting Good Deals for You
There’s now a whole festival of commerce revolving around Prime Day, with particularly great deals on electrical goods. Through rational shopping, you can get bargains on the things that matter to you, instead of being lured into bad buys or purchasing things you don’t need.
This is an annual opportunity that shouldn’t be missed, a chance for a bargain shopping spree and an opportunity to buy your favorite products at a far better price.
So shop rationally instead of blindly following the trends others set, and make the most out of the bargains July has to offer.