November has Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and May has Memorial Day weekend. When it comes to important dates for sales, July features an increasingly important calendar event: Amazon Prime Day.
Although Amazon has yet to officially announce the date of its unofficial holiday, a leak on the U.K. version of the site — first reported by TechRadar — suggests it will fall on Tuesday, July 17 this year, with some deals beginning around midday on Monday, July 16.
This extension fits with the way Amazon ran Prime Day in 2017, when it extended shopping beyond 24 hours for the first time. This year marks the fifth year the company is running the sale. If past years are any indication, you can expect lots of sales of Amazon products, including the Alexa-enabled Echo devices, as well as memberships to services such as Kindle Unlimited.
Prime Day is deal worthy, for sure, but it can be difficult to know the smartest shopping approach, since new discounts are dropping every five minutes. Our advice: Download the Amazon app and look for the daily prizes leading up to Prime Day; check out the "upcoming" deal tab to see discounted products a full day in advance; and set notifications to "watch this deal" for any products you do want to buy before time runs out.
Just like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, Prime Day only comes once every year. While you don't want to buy something just for the sake of buying it, you can save money if there's something you're already planning to purchase, like that TV you've been eyeing since the after-Christmas sales wrapped up.