Mark Your Calendars: Amazon Prime Day Is July 12th

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It’s here again. That quasi-holiday that Amazon invented to make buying more in the middle of summer seem appealing. Amazon Prime Day 2016 is on July 12th.

New to Amazon Prime Day? Wondering what deals you can expect and how to make the most of your online bucks? Here’s a rundown of what you can expect from Amazon’s biggest sale of the summer.

What Is Amazon Prime Day?

Amazon Prime Day is a once-a-year event that takes place in the middle of the summer. Similar to CyberMonday or after-Christmas sales, the goal is to motivate shoppers by offering some of the best prices of the year. However, unlike the winter holidays, sales on Amazon Prime Day are not gift-focused. Instead, Amazon’s goal is to get buyers to travel outside of their comfort zone and onto new areas of their site. Many of the deals you will see offered next week will therefore be on so-called niche items that will only appeal to a small section of the consumer population.

Furthermore, as its name implies, Amazon Prime Day deals are limited. They are only offered to current Prime members – those people who pay $99 per year for 2-day shipping, live streaming videos and other perks. However, those not yet members of Prime can still get in on the action by signing up for a free 30-day trial membership prior to July 12th. Just remember to cancel in time or else you will be billed for the whole year.

Amazon Prime Day 2016: What You Need to Know to Save

This year, Prime Day is Tuesday, July 12th. Deals will start early in the morning and last all day long. During that time, nearly 100,000 items will be offered through a “flash sale” model similar to how the sites presents its CyberMonday deals. Each deal is limited in quantity and, according to a source from Amazon who spoke to ABC News, the price for every item featured in the sale will be the lowest ever offered on Amazon over the past 12 months – including last year’s holiday sales.

However, for those itching to save, Amazon has actually started some Preview Prime Day sales today and will continue to rotate those sales until the big event on July 12th. Each day between now and then will have its own “theme” (today is “Tastes of Summer” and features food preparation items) to alert buyers to the types of deals they are likely to find. On Prime Day itself, anything goes and deals will be offered across all of the site’s dozens of departments.

How to Score Even More Deals on Amazon Prime Day

While keeping your eyes open next Tuesday and watching the site every hour or so is certainly one way to score great prices, there are actually a couple easier and more effective ways to save money on Amazon Prime Day.

First, if you don’t already have it, get the Amazon Prime app. Through the app only, customers are able to preview upcoming deals and set alerts to their phone or other mobile device when the deal is about to go live. This makes getting a price on a favored item easy.

Next, because eCommerce is nothing if not competitive, make sure to keep your eye on competing retailers like Walmart, eBay, Target and others both now and on July 12th. These stores are keen to get in on this made-up sales holiday and many will be slashing prices to steal away customers. Furthermore, many competitors will be offering price match. This allows customers to pay the Amazon price at other retailers, regardless of their advertised prices.

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