Psychological tip (and maybe an idea for a browser extension?):

- Never look at the sale percentage, just look at the price.

Yes, it might be "75% off!!", but is it still worth 200€ to you?

It takes some mental trickery and fortitude to drag your mind away from the "OMG IT WAS 800€ and now it's only 200!!" and only look at the current price vs features.

I don't buy stuff on Amazon just because it's on sale, but I do have a few things in my Wish List that I want to buy but only when they're at a price I'm happy with; many of them have been there for years.

Whenever I see a price change, and I'm not ready to buy, I add a note in the wish list notes with the current price, essentially tracking every price I see it at "by hand".

During sales I check back, and for ~90% of items in my list, they're higher not just than the lowest price I've recorded, but also many of the previously higher prices.

At this point I'm not even bothered about really ever buying much of this stuff on there, but it's fun to track the data even at a small scale like this.

A few years ago I moved to a country that didn't have Amazon. At first it was frustrating as I didn't know where to shop but now I see it as a benefit with some downsides. Before trips back home I'll look on Amazon for some stuff I can't get here and I'm flooded with Aliexpress junk and sponsored placements for Aliexpress junk. Amazon is hideous in so many ways.

The best way to save money on prime is to not buy stuff. Seriously.

"Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, but I review all tech with the same critical eye."

Kudos

I've always wondered what would happen with a shop that never has sales. A shop where the prices are always the same, although they may occasionally increase them due to inflation, etc.

Such a shop will not get the surge of "oh look a discount, let me buy it" consumers, but people will probably realize that this way when you need something you can buy it on the spot, and it will always have the best price no matter when.

Does a shop like this exist, or existed?

Obvious comment to various Amazon price trackers like https://keepa.com/

Think what you will about Amazon, but they proved their usefulness to me last week.

It was two days before a birthday and I needed a present, which interestingly was as unusual as a spotting scope. I found it on Amazon, paid a tiny amount extra for express delivery, and it arrived the next day at lunch time. Fully functional, no scams or trickery.

Before I bought it, I checked with all shops in mine and nearby cities, no luck. I went on PriceRunner, where the cheapest option was 30% more expensive and everyone had (at best) 3-5 days delivery. Then as a last check, I went on Amazon.

I don't love Amazon, there seem to be a lot of things that doesn't seem right. Plus they easily push out small shops everywhere.

But they do deliver.

This is why I never buy anything from Amazon unless I track prices in one of two ways:

1. camelcamelcamel.com 2. Add the product in my shopping cart and follow the price movement until I see the price drop down enough

I feel like my move to Amazon over the last 25 years has been little to do with price and more a symptom of my lack of free time when shops are open. I simply can't get to most physical stores during the week. And my weekends are rammed with all the things I didn't get to do during the week...

Then there is the issue of what physical stores have done to become more competitive. In many cases they have reduced their range. So now I'm worried that they simply won't have what I need.

Just copy the link into camelcamelcamel and look at the price history

It's about convivence. It's not been about big ticket items for me on such days lately, but more to stock up on essentials, prime day is a day I can assure they are usually all on 'offer' at the same time so it makes it easy to do a large order of everything and stock up.

Sure, might not be the absolute best price of the year, but it's a decent price for everything all at the same time, with the odd bigger ticket stuff if a real deal exists.

This year I bought a lot of household items, toiletries and even a few food cupboard items, all of which according to price tracker plugins are about the lowest they get to, even if they go that price sometimes throughout the year, it's a great time to do one big shop and not have to deal with the pain of receiving so many deliveries.

I don't see it as an issue, what amazon does is what everyone else does on their sales, you just need to do your research and stay aware, like with anything.

I don't have prime and only buy from Amazon occasionally. I have nothing against them, I simply don't see the value.

ive said it before and at the risk of sounding repetitive:

ive almost entirely stopped shopping online. it was rough at first, particularly since i kind of fell out of the loop on which stores carry what, but once i mostly figured that out its honestly so much nicer.

almost all of my christmas gifts were done at actual stores. and just everyday shit like random car lights to clothes to picture frames to bookshelves to random little gifts to journal notebooks, etc... its been such an improvement.

i kept finding myself sending back ridiculous amounts of stuff because the pictures and descriptions were either outright misleading, outright lying, or i just wouldnt read close enough. its pretty rad to hold the item in your hand, know exactly the size, the weight, feeling, color, material, etc... and just know you're getting exactly what you want right now in the exact moment.

and the thing that surprised me the most? how much i actually enjoy people. i know it sounds entirely ridiculous but even just being helped by someone or checked out by a person felt right. ive never been an anti-social or anxious person, ive always had regular social life with friends and coworkers, but shopping with real people was working a social muscle that i hadn't realized was atrophying so badly.

and it gave me an excuse to get out of the house often for something other than work or partying.

anyway, of course amazon was going to go this way, we see it over and over and over again. none of us are shocked.

These events are just so tiring and exhausting in the public eye.

First it was Prime Day. Now it’s Prime Big Deal Days. Then all the other retailers have to jump on “deal week” and “deal day” campaigns and equally make a bunch of loud, useless noise for sales that have little to no actual discount.

Anyone else up for some sales fatigue?

Everybody does the same on Black Friday sales.

This is illegal in the EU, they still pulled the same shit here. Let's hope they're fined for it.

By using camelcamelcamel or keepa it's easy to spot the fake deals, who get a bump in price the day before only to get a "discount" for the promotion day.

Aside, keep a list of things you need and don't buy anything just because it's on sale.

I remember reading the first serious book about Sam Walton and Walmart. Walton had this thing where he would put two bins of identical flip-flops side-by-side. One would be marked a dollar up, one would be marked a dollar down. People would always bought the cheaper, and then Walton would just shovel the flip-flops from the expensive bin to the cheaper bin. Walmart, Amazon, and just about every other retail has been playing us forever. But Amazon takes it to an art form.

No shit. Honestly if you aren't using one of those price tracking extensions on Amazon you're doing it wrong. I use Keepa.

It's amazing how many product prices are now a square wave. Look at this for example and feel sorry for the people that paid £100.

https://keepa.com/#!product/2-B0DNG35BVM

Often they are even more predictable and switch between the high and low price every two weeks. I have no idea why. Here's an example:

https://keepa.com/#!product/2-B08W241HPW

Anyway if you browse with one of these extensions on Prime day it's very obvious how much of a lie their deals are. They're usually the lowest price that something has been available, but also usually they've been at that price before in the last few months.