How to Score Big on Prime Day

Amazon's highly anticipated Prime Day is just around the corner, kicking off on Tuesday, 7/11 and extending through Wednesday, 7/12. To help you gear up for this event, I'm eager to share some insider tips on landing the best deals.?

You might be wondering, "Why would a robotics startup CEO (follow us at Collaborative Robotics) have valuable insights for Prime Day shopping?" Well, the story takes us back to 2015 when Amazon first launched Prime Day.?

As a Distinguished Engineer at Amazon then, I was in charge of the Technical Risk Reduction function. My role was to ensure the technical readiness and operational availability of Amazon's comprehensive technology stack, and I was at the helm for the first three Prime Day events.?

This experience not only provided me with a profound understanding of the logistics behind Prime Day but also equipped me with savvy shopping strategies that I'm excited to share with you.

You're encouraged to shop the deals because you're then experiencing what shoppers are experiencing

Scaling a site to support that type of volume is an interesting story in and of itself. It takes a few months of preparation to ensure everything is ready and hardened. The day of the event, you're sitting in an operational readiness room from midnight to midnight making sure the site stays up as Japan, then Europe, then the US wakes up.

If you do your job well in advance, then there's really very little to do in that operational readiness room... except SHOP the DEALS! You're encouraged to shop the deals because you're then experiencing what shoppers are experiencing simultaneously and if an error report comes in or something seems to be going wrong, you know how to navigate the deals to try to reproduce it quickly. Also, some issues might only affect phones or tablets or the website, so you're also shopping deals on multiple devices.

After maybe 72 hours of dedicated time shopping Prime Day deals, I got good at it! Now in fairness, most of my tips here are from memory from almost 5 years ago. There's a reasonable chance some of these tips and techniques no longer work or have changed. If so, please correct me and add your own tips in the comments.

Getting Ready

In the same way Amazon technical teams prepare for Prime Day, as a shopper, it's worth preparing in advance. Amazon and various news outlets often publish some of the deals in advance. This is helpful because you can get a sense for which brands are likely going all-out with discounts. Amazon itself has always gone all-out with discounts on Amazon devices, but you might pick up that other brands also have highlighted deals. For instance, this USA Today article lists a number of the deals in advance. Not only can you get a jump on potentially good deals, you can pick up themes, like Cuisinart and Callaway seems to have multiple deals and there seems to be a focus on shoe deals this year. Those are good hints that those brands may have more deals coming up.

One secret of Prime Day is that a 30% off deal might be 25% off most of the time.

Another technique I like to do is to add products I'm interested in to my Amazon Wishlist ahead of Prime Day. The nice thing about the Amazon Wishlist is that it tracks the price at the time you added it to your wishlist. One secret of Prime Day is that a 30% off deal might be 25% off most of the time. Amazon has traditionally tried to make sure the deals really are a better deal than their everyday low pricing, but if you don't know the original price, you don't really know how good the deal is. Adding products you think you might like to your Wishlist in the days ahead of Prime Day helps you to go back and check what the standard every day low price is.

Exploring All the Deals

Again, some of this might have changed, but one thing I learned about searching deals is that you should try to search them from a tablet, not from your phone or your browser. The reason is that the tablet interface has a behavior called "infinite scroll" where, as you scroll through a set of deals, the deals continue to fill in. On a web browser, once you've scrolled through a certain number of deals, you have to hit "next" to load a new page, which slows you down. This is a much more cumbersome experience if you're trying to search through hundreds of deals. The phone supports infinite scroll as well, but the screen is smaller making it slower to scan through lots of deals.

Claiming deals and checking out is far faster on your phone than through the web browser or the tablet.

When you're scrolling through deals, I recommend first picking the category you're most interested in. I like electronics and housewares primarily. I don't spend a lot of time in health & beauty. But it is way faster to explore all the electronics deals if I'm not seeing them alongside deals for beauty products.

In general, you want to look at Lightning Deals first or any other time-limited deals. Those are supply-limited deals as well, so you need to get there first. Traditionally Amazon has let you see Lightning Deals before they're launched while allowing you to express interest in watching that deal. Definitely use that feature. Also, if you see a really great deal at a particular time, set a reminder or alarm on your phone for 2 minutes before the deal to make sure you're there to claim the deal when it comes online.

If you find a deal you like that isn't a Lightning Deal, then add that product to your Wish List before you check out.

Claiming Deals and Checking Out

One trick I've found is that claiming deals and checking out is far faster on your phone than through the web browser or the tablet. I recommend always completing the purchase experience on your phone. For lightning deals that you're watching, as soon as it comes up, click Buy Now. For other deals that you found on your tablet and put in your Wishlist, you can buy those from your Wishlist on your phone.

So, there you have it! Those are my insider tips to help you navigate and take full advantage of Amazon's Prime Day. Remember, it's not just about snagging deals, but also about the fun and excitement of the hunt! Use these tips as your secret weapon, and you'll be a Prime Day pro in no time. Happy shopping everyone and please do respond in the comments to share your own tips!