Everything you need to know

It’s no secret that things are expensive these days. So, many of us like to hold off on buying things like TVs and speakers, or even more boring items like smart plugs, until the various major shopping holidays to take advantage of higher-than-normal discounts. We recently passed Memorial Day, which tends to have superb sales as a way to kick off the summer. Luckily, you don’t need to wait until Black Friday deals start dropping late this fall to find cheaper prices on items you need or want. Amazon graces us all with a sale right in the middle of the summer called Prime Day.

What is Prime Day?

Take advantage of steep discounts on this shopping holiday

Prime Day is an Amazon-specific shopping holiday. The company started Prime Day on its 20th birthday on July 15, 2015, as a way to celebrate its Prime members. The event has grown massively since then, now encompassing two days instead of just one. It is ripe with deals exclusively for Prime members, featuring discounts on top brands and small businesses alike. You can typically find savings on big-ticket items like televisions, gaming consoles, and speakers, along with essentials like food storage, batteries, soaps, and more.

When is Prime Day?

A summertime celebration

Amazon Prime Day will occur sometime in July. Amazon hasn’t announced specific dates yet, but we will be sure to share them when they are available.

What deals will there be on Prime Day?

Prime Day is full of surprises

Amazon doesn’t announce deals until closer to the big day, with lots not getting revealed until during the event. In fact, Amazon tends to sprinkle new deals throughout those two days, so it’s always full of surprises as to what you’ll find on sale. The company will announce some sneak peeks ahead of time, though, so you can start getting a feel for what may interest you come the big day.

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It’s important to remember that not everything on Amazon will be on sale for Prime Day. However, hundreds of thousands of discounts will be available across just about every category.

How do you know what’s on sale?

There are lots of ways to stay connected

Chances are, you don’t want to sit at your computer browsing items all day come Prime Day to figure out what might be on sale. Luckily, there are a few ways you can get notified and stay in the loop with discounts.

First, you can opt-in to emails from Amazon to give you updates on deals and events. For a more personalized approach, you can create deal alerts for recent Amazon searches or viewed items. To do so, visit the Prime Day event page on the Amazon App between now and Prime Day and create a deal alert. Then, once Prime Day is here, you’ll get push notifications if any of those items go on sale.

If you have Alexa, you can ask it to give you deal notifications for anything on your Wish List, Cart, or Save for Later. You can also ask Alexa to remind you when Prime Day starts.

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Finally, we’ll be sharing our favorite deals throughout the two days here at Pocket-lint. If you’re in the market for some tech or entertainment, you can check back here to see what we’ve dug up for you.

Do you need a Prime membership to shop Prime Day deals?

It’s a celebration for members

Amazon

Yes, you do need a Prime membership to enjoy the discounts on Prime Day. You can create a free 30-day trial before Prime Day begins or sign up for a membership for $14.99 per month or $139 per year. A Prime Membership includes free, fast shipping, unlimited access to movies and TV shows on Prime Video, access to songs and podcasts with Amazon Music, free games from Prime Gaming, more than 3,000 books with Prime Reading, unlimited photo storage with Amazon Photos, and deals at Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market stores across the U.S. Plus, of course, excellent savings on Prime Day.

If you don’t have and don’t want a Prime membership, other retailers tend to have their own sales around the same time to compete with Amazon. Target, Best Buy, and Walmart all typically offer steep discounts that overlap with Prime Day, and small businesses have also started participating. If you want to stay away from Amazon, you may still be able to find some worthy deals across a variety of platforms and retailers.