Summer’s online Black Friday is here. Amazon Prime Day started a shopping sale war with Walmart, Target, Kohls, and other retailers announcing competing deal days. KPRC 2 consumer expert Amy Davis shows you how to narrow down the deals that are sent to you along with the top three things all parents should consider buying during the deal days.
Davis spoke to busy mom blogger Jamie Stippel, who is making her list and checking it twice ahead of the summer deal days ahead.
Every day it seems like we are hearing more about the new deals that will be coming out. However, you probably won’t see the same deals as someone else, because many retailers use your search history to send you deals for those items. That’s part of how you can narrow down how to find the best deals out there. Stippel’s favorite place to save money is Amazon Prime. First, sign up for Amazon Prime.
1. Look now
The first tip for saving the most money is to start looking now. Add items to your cart. Stippel has her prime deals figured out in advance.
“They’re already doing a ton of early Prime Day Deals,” Stippel said. “...Something else to remember when Prime Day rolls around, there are certain deals that go on where they only have a certain quantity of those deals. So maybe there’s 1000, maybe there’s 100 and once they’re claimed, they’re gone.”
2. Get on waitlists
You will see a lot of deals during the sale days. If you didn’t get the Amazon Lightning Deal in time, sign up for the waitlist. Often Amazon will send you a discounted rate for the item after the sale is finished.
3. Check your “Subscribe and Save” items
Don’t forget to check for deals on the “Subscribe and Save” items you are already signed up for. Sometimes it’s easy to forget about those items since they are shipped without you thinking about it. You may also want to consider adding items to “Subscribe and Save.”
“We get lots of things like soaps, anything for the kids that I know that they’re going to need on repeat or things around the house that we know that we’re going to meet on repeat,” Stippel said. “If we find a good deal, we’ll get them ... It depends if they’re putting it on a good deal for ‘Subscribe and Save’ for Prime Day. Specifically, I’ll look at investing or you know, starting a subscription with things like household cleaners and laundry detergent, things like that.”
4. Follow stores
Go through Amazon and “like” or “follow” all of the stores you might want to get deals from. You should get notified about the deals that will happen during the sale event.
You’ll also want to think about those random items you may have looked up on Amazon Prime. You don’t want Amazon sending you random deals.
“Maybe I searched for something last week because we just randomly needed it but we are never going to need it again. Well, I want that out of my browser history because I don’t want it to be something it’s giving me deals about if it’s something for the lawn that I’m never going to use,” Stippel said. “So you want to get rid of that and manage those personalized deals so that you are getting the notifications for things that really pertain to you.”
Stippel recommends going to the “Manage Personalized Deals” section of your Prime account to manage these settings.
Three things every parent should buy during Amazon Prime Day
As a busy mom, personal trainer, and blogger, Stippel knows preparing ahead of time for a big sale can really help in the long run. She encourages other parents to buy three essential items.
Christmas Gifts
“If you think about something that you know your child is going to want for their big present, this is a great time to invest in it and doesn’t make the holiday so overwhelming financially,” she said.
Popular brands like Lego, Melissa and Doug, and Barbie will most likely have toys on sale.
Stock your gift stash
How many times has your child been invited to a birthday party and you have to run out at the last minute to buy a gift? Now you can be prepared.
“It’s good to look for activities or toys within your child’s own age range and buy a few things that are discounted because you know, they’re going to get invited to a birthday party,” said Stippel.
Gift cards
“There’s going to be discounts on gift cards not just to Amazon, but think about to restaurants or favorite stores,” Stippel said. “Start coming up with a list of your favorite places that you like to go out to eat. You can keep them and say ‘Hey this is going to cover date night.’ We can go on a date night and spend $100. But maybe we actually only spent $70 on the gift cards, and you can save that for later.”
So many deals! So little time!
We get it. Everyone is busy and it might seem overwhelming. Stippel said because there are so many deals out there, you can narrow down your search by looking for curated lists from your favorite influencers or companies. Jamie has a few lists to get you started. Other popular lists include Good Housekeeping, Very Well Family, and NBC. Your favorite influencers will probably be releasing their own lists.
As mentioned above, other stores are having deal days this week. Let us know what great deals you find!