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What Is Prime Day?

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If you haven’t ever taken advantage of Prime Day through Amazon, this could be the year to do it. Prime Day is a major savings event — comparable to Black Friday or Cyber Monday — but it’s only available to Amazon Prime members.

You may still be on the fence about paying for Prime. But the thing is, Prime Day lasts longer than 24 hours and, in some ways, the event surpasses the Black Friday and Cyber Monday competition. So what is it?

Prime Day began in 2015 as a 24-hour event to celebrate Amazon’s birthday. Since then, however, it’s grown from a small birthday bash to a big birthday extravaganza, not that anyone’s complaining.

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And while no details have been released regarding how long 2019’s Prime Day deals will last just yet, publications such as Laptop Magazine are predicting the event will be bigger and better than ever — potentially lasting as long as 48 hours. Last year’s Prime Day, for comparison, came in at a historical high for the event, lasting 36 hours.

The exact date of 2019’s Prime Day is still unknown at the time of this publication, but the event always takes place around the second week of July — so you can still tentatively pencil it into your calendars. Tom’s Guide is expecting the event to fall on either July 8 or July 15 this year.

The Deals

In the past, the best deals have been on electronics such as 4K TVs, smart watches, tablets and smart home devices. According to Tom’s Guide, you’ll find the best savings opportunities on Amazon-branded devices. So if you’ve been interested in getting yourself an Echo, Prime Day could be just the time to do it.

But deals expand outside of the technology category, too. For instance, a 6-quart instant pot was marked down from $99 to just $58 during last year’s Prime Day sale, according to The Verge. So whether you need to stock up in the kitchen or beef up your electronic selection, Prime Day’s likely got savings in store for you.

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If you know the types of products you plan to shop for in advance, be sure to check out Don’t Waste Your Money’s product reviews on the best electronics, the best items for your home and more to make sure you’re getting the best that money can buy before committing to a purchase.

How To Shop

If you’re interested in shopping this year’s Prime Day deals, you can start by signing up for a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime. When you do, you’ll have access to the Prime Day deals, but also free two-day shipping, free Prime Video streaming and more perks.

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Should you decide to keep the membership past the trial, it’ll cost $119/year or $12.99 a month.

Once you’ve signed up, access Prime Day deals as soon as they’re live simply by navigating to the Prime Day page through Amazon’s homepage. Last year, the retailer had an entire hub dedicated to the deals.

What do you think? Will you be shopping and saving during Prime Day 2019?

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