Prime Day savings: Tips from a shopping pro

It’s that time of year again – Amazon’s Prime Day is back for the 10th time, running July 16th and 17th. As usual, Amazon is promising millions of deals across various categories, essentially creating their own shopping event.

“Because there’s so much activity, you certainly don’t want to be going willy-nilly and buying all sorts of things that you might regret later,” said shopping expert Trae Bodge. She says it’s important to be strategic.

Here are some tips to make the most of Prime Day:

1. Make a list or add desired items to your cart in advance. This way, you can easily track price drops.
2. Compare deals using sites like Yahoo Shopping and Google Shopping.
3. Check an item’s Amazon price history at CamelCamelCamel.com. “That’s a good place to get a sense of what the prices are, what the prices were,” said Bodge.
4. Look for deals on Amazon’s own brands, including Amazon Basics, Amazon Essentials, Ring, Kindle, Fire, and more. These often see some of the lowest prices during Prime Day.
5. Expect deals on small home appliances. “We will see lots of deals, especially on small home appliances, like your robotic vacuum or your air fryer,” Bodge predicts.

Other things to know:

• Alexa can alert you about deals.
• Invite-only deals are back, where you sign up in advance to be randomly selected for deeply discounted products.
• You need a Prime membership to access the deals, but you can sign up for a 30-day free trial.

Remember, Amazon isn’t the only retailer with a membership program. Target, Walmart, Best Buy, and even CVS all offer annual memberships.

“You shouldn’t have more than one of those retail memberships. Pick the one that serves you the best and stick with that and shop with that retailer regularly to get the best bang for your buck out of that annual membership fee,” concluded Bodge.

One more tip: you can easily spot price drops by looking for special banners near the prices of items. Look for banners that say “Limited Time Deal,” “With Prime,” or “Lightning Deal.” There could also be others.