We’re mere days away from the annual Amazon Prime Day sale, a 2-day event where Prime members get exclusive access to thousands of discounted products, brands and services. The early deals launched in late June so we’ve already been given a flavour of what’s to come on the 12th-13th July.
At T3, we’ve been reporting on Prime Day for years and we make it a priority to help our readers find the best deals possible. However, if you’re new to Prime Day, the amount of deals can be a little overwhelming and you might be left wondering: “are these deals even real?!”
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Most people avoid big sales events because they’re worried about getting ripped off or paying for something that was actually super cheap to begin with. Of course, the ‘best deal’ is subjective and will vary from person to person but in general, you don’t want to be pulled in by an amazing deal only to find that the discount wasn’t even real to begin with!
To help you avoid the pitfalls of untrustworthy deals or fake product reviews, we’ve put together this guide to help you avoid getting ripped off this Prime Day and make sure you don’t get buyer’s remorse. For more shopping tips, check out our guide on 5 mistakes everyone makes on Prime Day.
1. Don’t always go off RRP
Our first tip on avoiding being ripped off this Prime Day is to look beyond the discount and RRP. RRP stands for Recommended Retail Price and is a price set by the supplier as a recommendation to the retailer. To put this into context, a company or brand that’s being featured on the Amazon website will have expressed how much the product is and how much it should be sold for.
While RRP is typically trustworthy and tells you how much the product is originally worth, some product makers can advertise their products with huge discount percentages during a shopping event. More often than not, these prices can be artificial or based on a recently inflated price point, so you could be buying something that’s advertised as half price when it actually isn’t. To avoid this, we recommend setting up notifications to your Prime account so you’re alerted whenever the product that you want falls in price. Another way is to do a bit of research and check how much the product is on the maker’s website or how much it’s selling from other retailers. This helps you make sure you’re getting the best prices during the sales and that the discount is real.
2. Use price checking tools
Another way to avoid getting ripped off during Prime Day is to use price checking tools. Similar to checking the RRP, you want to make sure you’re getting the best prices and the cheapest option available. Using price checking tools like camelcamelcamel is a great way to ensure that you’re getting the best discount on offer. This price checking tool can be added to your extensions bar. Once you click it on an Amazon product page, it shows you the complete history of the product, including how low priced or expensive it’s been and if it’s been found cheaper elsewhere. It will also include how much a used or refurbished version of the item costs.
It’s worth mentioning that while Prime Day is only available on Amazon and not a universal event, some retailers might be trying to rival prices on the day. Some items advertised might be cheaper elsewhere during Prime Day so there’s no harm in using a price check tool to make sure!
3. Spot the fake reviews
If you find it hard to make decisions, heading to the reviews section on a product page is a great way to put your mind at ease and find out what other people thought of it. However, there’s always someone out there to ruin the fun by leaving a fake or misleading review.
Fake reviews take various forms, from ones aimed to entice and mislead shoppers into spending money, to ones designed to damage a company’s reputation. As has been widely reported, Amazon is often affected by fake reviews and despite their best efforts, it can be hard for Amazon to find and remove all of them with so many products on the website. This is where you’ll need to step in and do some sleuthing for yourself.
There are many ways to spot a fake review but here are a few tips and tricks to have on hand when you’re reading through the review section. Look out for language that’s overly promotional as this could be a sales tactic to get you to buy something that’s not worth the money. If a review has been repeated multiple times or you find similar wording throughout the reviews, this can also be an indication that the review is fake. Finally, if you see a review on a product that is describing a completely different product, this is a big red flag!
Amazon is working in the background to tackle these fake reviews and you can now find a button saying ‘Verified Purchase’ next to reviews. This means they’ve verified that the person writing the review bought and used the product on Amazon so this can put your mind at ease that the review is legit. To start shopping the Prime Day sale, check out our Amazon Prime Day deals hub to find the latest price drops on a range of products and brands.
