Black Friday and Cyber Monday aren’t the only days-of-deals that should be on your radar. Amazon Prime’s third annual “Prime Day” begins Monday, July 10 at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. EST and ends on Tuesday, July 12 at midnight PT/3 a.m. ET, offering hundreds of thousands of deals across 12 countries.
There’s just one catch: the 30-hours of discounts are only available to Prime members. If you’re not yet a member, starting a free trial here on or before July 11 will still get you eligibility for Prime Day.
(A note about Prime membership: it costs $99 a year, or $50 for students, and offers guaranteed 2-day free shipping, plus unlimited streaming of film and TV on Amazon Video and access to over one million titles on Kindle. The 2-day free shipping really makes it so much easier, and cheaper, to mail presents on time or order last minute amenities. And it’s worth it for the TV access alone — Amazon original series like “Transparent,” plus titles from HBO’s first-wave of programming, including “The Wire” and “The Sopranos.”)
How does Amazon Prime Day work?
Any Prime members can get access to deals by visiting Amazon.com as early as 1 a.m. Eastern, Thursday, June 29, when preliminary deals begin, and roll out every day until Prime Day. On Prime Day, the deals will be organized by the 20 top most popular categories, tailored to you based on your ordering history. Downloading the Amazon app will allow you “deal watch,” which includes previewing deals and getting notifications when deals go live — and with many limited-time “lightning” deals offered as frequently as every five minutes, you’ll want to make sure you don’t miss any.
What kinds of deals can you expect this year?
While Amazon has yet to announce the specific deals on Prime Day itself, they’ve named two major categories of deals for this year: “Alexa exclusive” discounts (for members with Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show, Amazon Tap, compatible Fire TV or Fire tablet), and TV Deals, featuring new brands such as the Amazon Fire TV Edition of the Element 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV. In the press release, Amazon notes that the TV deals are likely to sell out.
Here are the deals that are already available today (Thursday). Check Amazon.com daily through July 11 to see what’s new.
–Four months of Amazon Music Unlimited for $.99
–First times users of Amazon Video get a $10 shopping credit
–40 percent off on a Kindle Unlimited Membership.
–40 percent off first six months of Audible.
Happy shopping!
