If you have an idea of what you want before the sale starts and know how much the standard price is you can still be lucky and get a good deal. You just have to be careful not to get sucked in to a non deal.
For example, I was looking out for an Apple Watch. There is a good sale on them but they only have a limited set of body and strap combinations. I don’t want any of the straps on offer so it negates almost all of the discount as I’d be paying £50 for a strap that I wouldn’t use.
This entire comment is the perfect explanation for my issue with people getting excited over Black Friday/Prime Day. I see so many people every year excitedly saying (or at times bragging), oh I got this, I got that, and it was so cheap. But unless you were already looking at that thing you haven't saved money. You've actually spent more than you would have if it wasn't on sale.
Amazon US doesn't do that, but they do show a "lowest price in 30 days" badge that is actually truthful (appears when the item is on sale and the sale price is the lowest in the last 30 days). Of course, there's some sellers that game it by increasing their prices over 30 days before Prime Day.
I dont think it includes procong due to coupons though.
If a product had a minor coupon (e.g <5$) and the product was discounted to that price without coupon, it would still advertise lowest price despite it not really changing.
I don’t know if it’s a law here too in Canada, but Amazon.ca works the same. What sellers do to get around this just make a new listing for products at inflated rates so they can then discount them for “sales”, while simultaneously setting the regular listing to unavailable until the “sale” is over.
Using a browser addon that tracks price history, we found a bunch of "deals" on Amazon US that had raised the price 30 days ago and are now flagged "Lowest price in 30 days!". The "deal" price was almost always the exact same price it was 31 days prior.
Not to defend Amazon, but in past years the comments in Reddit on this issue pointed out that Amazon has requirements on markdown percentages to qualify for prime day and lightning sales. As a result, vendors who control their price will artificially increase their price over the days leading to prime day and then apply the “discount”.
I do wish that if that were the case that Amazon actually address it as they should be able to detect that pattern. I unfortunately think they don’t care as they make money regardless. I just wish they care a bit more about earning and keeping trust.
Here's the product page. You can see how it's 46% off $119, but if you want, you can also buy it at $89 regular price. They're now not even increasing the price of the item, they're just claiming it's higher.
The normal price is $89.99, which represents a 15% discount off the MSRP of $119.99 (that they're claiming). The current price of $64.99, is a discount of 42%, which represents an additional 27% off. I don't think this listing necessarily proves the point.
That being said, companies absolutely do engage in this kind of bullshit. This one may have done it itself in order to claim the MSRP at $119.99.
Common Amazon deception. Mark up a product's base cost artificially, then take a "percentage off" to bring it back down to near the base price it always is. Maybe slightly more expensive or cheaper, but usually just a smidge away from the normal cost. It's for the illusion of "being on sale."
Use an Amazon price tracker site (like camel camel camel for example) so that you can always call out Amazon and make sure that you're getting their actual lowest prices when you have to buy from them.
A handful of years back, JC Penney made a huge deal about stopping this practice in their stores, where everything is on “sale” all the time. Sales plummeted even though the actual product prices stayed the same. They immediately reversed course.
Furniture stores are infamous for that. They make a big deal of closing down for a day and marking every item in the store with a big discount, but what they don't tell you is they jack the price way up first before applying the discount.
Amazon started in may sending a massive email campaign to all affiliates with referral links reminding prime day, if an user buys something using the link, the affiliate (in this case your credit union) will get a 5% commission
I do this for every item. I did buy some stuff this prime day and one item was in reality $5 cheaper... not the $15 Amazon said. I also sometimes find target, Walmart or Microcenter(frys) has just a good a deal: and those stores actually let you return stuff and give you your money back
Even the percentage claimed is just complete garbage.
Zero proof of how many are actually sold, the counter could start at 70% sold for all we know. Even if there was proof, it's still clearly just a "other people bought this so you aren't stupid for buying it too".
Really good manipulation there tbh. Someone probably got a raise for that
Fucking AnazonBasics pulled this shit with something I bought. Not quite as bad; it was still technically on sale, but only by $2 instead of the $7 they would have you believe.
Yea, I don't assume anything is on sale until I've looked at camelcamelcamel.com. Even then, it doesn't get lightning deals, and some other random promotions, so it can be difficult to tell what an actual good price is.
Camelcamelcamel is good, but Keepa has a browser extension that shows the price graph directly on the Amazon page, so you don't have to go anywhere or click anything to see it.
Except that the GPU is taking it on the chin on sales anyways. Probably a week from now it'll be $1200 and they are just hoping to grab a few quick sales before the actual price drop
Amusingly enough, I bought an small appliance yesterday, amazon had worse deals than a big box store. They had cheaper prices on no name junk that was gonna take a week to get to me. Prime day is total shit.
Exactly, amazon is a thing because we all don't have time to run to the store for that one thing that isn't an emergency. I see it as another way that the " " system " " has boxed us more into the "CONSUME" driven American existence. Like, even if a store is 5 minutes away and you're getting "one thing" it's still going to take at least 30 minute commitment especially if that store is say "walmart". If the store is 15 mins away, you're basically at an hour commitment.
We don't have time to do stuff like that anymore! I am trying to weigh that thought and the idea we are all just brainwashed into the immediacy of needing everything now.
I guess you meant underwhelmed instead of understanding.
And well Idk I didn't need anything so not sure. Personally the only thing I got was the Microsoft 365 Family subscription for 1 year since it was half a price than the usual renewall... Although now that I think about it maybe I should have bought more years.
Every deal I was interested in I checked on camel camel camel. Everything was marked ~40% off but was really only like ~5-10% off. There were a few good deals, but they were in a sea of fake deals making it impossible to actually find them.
Your screen shots don’t show the item being sold in the first one or the price in the second one. I fully believe Amazon is doing Amazon things but did you even look at your own pictures before making your post?
I screenshotted it from my phone, and I could only get so much in a screenshot. They are all the same items. Here's a desktop screenshot. Looks like the item has been 90+ claimed since morning. Another scam.
I was looking at a QNAP NAS box. When I added it to watch it was $589. Yesterday before prime day it was $573. This morning it was $582. Mid day it was back to $589.
Not a big difference and it wasn’t a prime day deal. But it’s more expensive than yesterday?
This shows consumerism as its finest (or worst). Easy for me to say control your urges but it does help by not buying any crap that you might think you want and clutter up your place
Oddly enough, I managed to find some really cheap gum. Usually $4.50 on sale at the shops but I got 6x bottles / packs of it for 12 bucks. Pretty happy finding little bargains like that!
Ingoe a good chuckle this morning when checking my Amazon cart and getting notifications of multiple items having lower prices and none had it increased.