As product experts, a big part of our job at WIRED is to help you get the best products at the best prices. That includes helping you find great deals during massive sales events like Black Friday and, of course, Amazon Prime Day. If you’re looking to score the best price on that device you’ve had in your cart for months, it’s important to know when to pull the trigger and when not to. Aside from a handful of good early Prime Day deals, now is almost certainly the time to play it safe.
Amazon, Walmart, and other big retailers tend to mark up prices on all sorts of products that have long since been marked down below the manufacturer’s suggested retail price before a big sale. That way, when you see it on the big day, it will look like a great deal. In fact great deal, even when it would have been impossible to buy the product at the inflated price displayed even if you had tried. This is not a new phenomenon and is not limited to online sellers. A Harvard business professor wrote An article about the phenomenon in 2018Unsuccessful class-action lawsuits have been filed against traditional brick-and-mortar retailers like Kohl’s and JCPenney over the practice.
We do our best to guide you through this bargain price trap with our daily coverage and Prime Day posts, but we can’t do it all alone. There are plenty of ways you can prepare yourself as a smart shopper to get the best gear while keeping your budget intact, from timing your moves to stocking up on last year’s best. Here are some helpful tips and tricks to follow now and throughout the year to save big bucks.
Price tracking tools
If you focus on prices and shopping on Amazon, you should use a price tracker to keep track of product price drops (and rises). The best options are: Keep a (the one I use most often) and CamelCamelCamelBoth trackers are free and work on all major browsers. (You can read our detailed guide for more tips on finding the best Amazon deals.)
While it’s true that these tools are primarily for Amazon shopping, many other retailers tend to follow the path Amazon goes down, often including manufacturer sites. If you shop outside of the Amazon universe, there are other good price tracking tools worth checking out, including deal sites like Elegant Offers, Honeyand Pricerunner.com.
While none of these specialized tools or sites are perfect, they can all be helpful in keeping you up to date on what’s a good deal and what’s not.
Choose your moment
While price tracking is key, it’s important to know the best times of year to shop. As mentioned above, it’s generally wise to avoid buying big-ticket items, especially tech gear, right before a major sales event like Amazon Prime Day, which this year is scheduled for July 16-17.
The same is often true for other big-box store events like Wayfair Day, as well as general sales held around holidays like Labor Day and Presidents Day. Not only is the product you’re looking for often selling for a higher price than during the big sale, but it may also hit its highest price of the year.
On the other hand, Black Friday (and Cyber Monday) deals tend to work the opposite way, becoming more of a month-long free-for-all rather than a one- or two-day event. We often see prices across product categories drop for weeks leading up to Black Friday as retailers court consumers who want to get their holiday shopping done early.
If you’re looking for deals on TVs, sound bars, and home theater systems, you might also see plenty of deals leading up to the all-important “big game,” aka the Super Bowl. Brands and retailers think you’ll want a big, solid screen and good sound not just for the game itself, but also for the halftime show, the Puppy Bowl, and those multi-billion-dollar commercials. That said, since the Super Bowl comes after a series of big shopping events and right after new TV models are announced, these deals aren’t always what they seem.
