I tracked Amazon’s Prime Day prices. We’ve been played.

[lurch234]

 

I would have saved, on average, almost nothing. Here’s what you should do to actually get a good deal on Amazon.

 

Column by Geoffrey A. Fowler

Next time Amazon hypes its Prime Days savings, remember this: The prices during the sale aren’t always better. 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 more.

 

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.

 

Then, on the first day of the sale, I got a text from my dad: “Very disappointed,” he wrote. “The prices were significantly higher!”

 

He was right. 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.

 

Many retailers use “sales” for misleading marketing, so I decided to investigate systematically. I pulled receipts for every non-grocery purchase I’d made on Amazon over the past six months — nearly 50 products.

 

Then I calculated what those same items would have cost during Prime Big Deal Days on Oct. 8.

 

My overall potential Big Deal Days savings: a mere 0.6 percent. And that doesn’t include the $139 annual fee to be a member of Amazon Prime.

 

Tariffs and inflation might have contributed to rising prices over that period. But as my colleague Michelle Singletary says, Prime Day is mostly a good deal for Amazon — not for you. (What’s your experience with Amazon’s sales techniques? Send me an email.)

 

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

 

“Amazon offers customers genuine savings and transparent pricing, whether on a regular shopping day or during a major event like Prime Big Deal Day,” said spokeswoman Jessica Martin in an email.

 

“While we offer millions of deals during events, not every item across our store will be on promotion during an event, which is normal in retail,” she said, adding that the examples I shared “are not indicative of the broader trends for this event.”

 

I’m not the only one who thinks Prime Days can feel like a marketing scheme. 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 asked Amazon about its pricing practices around Prime Day. “When we display a discount, we compare our price to actual prices that customers have recently paid on Amazon or that competitors have recently offered,” Martin said.

 

Yet 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.”

 

Source

 

Edited October 10, 2025 by lurch234

[flash48]

Just an advertising  gimmick.  Someone once said "let the buyer beware".  This is why we should use web sites like   retailmenot.com  before buying.