'I Tracked Amazon's Prime Day Prices. We've Been Played'

'Next time Amazon hypes its Prime Days savings, remember this: The prices during the sale aren't always better,' writes a Washington Post technology columnist. 'I've got the receipts to prove it.'

I would have saved, on average, almost nothing during Amazon's recent fall 'Prime Big Deal Days' — and for some big-ticket purchases, I would have actually paid amore. For the sale that took place Oct. 7 and 8, my family went in prepared. We had a shopping list with prices we'd been tracking... A TV stand he'd been watching jumped 38 percent to $379, from $275 on Oct. 2. Same story for a few other big-ticket items on his list — another console went up from $219.99 to $299. Those products weren't listed as 'big deals' on the site, but we certainly didn't expect their prices to spike during Prime Days.

And in other cases, Amazon marketed discounts that turned out to be the exact price it had charged in recent weeks. One example: an Oral-B electric toothbrush was listed as 39 percent off, but actually the same price as in August... Other consumer advocates have warned one common trick is for Amazon to feature artificially inflated 'before' prices to make discounts appear larger than they are. Ahead of Amazon's 2017 Prime Day, the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog reported that 61 percent of reference prices on Amazon were higher than any price the company had charged for those items in the prior 90 days... I found products listed as Prime Day discounts that cost the same as I'd paid less than a month earlier. For example, a pack of coronavirus tests I bought on Sept. 12 was the same price on Oct. 8, but listed as '39 percent off.' Amazon said I'd gotten a particularly good deal in September, and the Prime Big Deal Days price offers 'meaningful savings compared to the typical price customers have paid on Amazon over the last 90 days....'

To actually get a good deal on Amazon, go in with a plan. I use a free website called CamelCamelCamel, which tracks Amazon's historical prices. You can see what's really a discount — and set alerts when prices drop to your target.

The reporter checked every non-grocery purchase they'd made on Amazon for six months. Purchasing the same products on Amazon's 'Big Deal Days' would have brought savings of just 0.6%. 'And that doesn't include the $139 annual fee to be a member of Amazon Prime.'

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