All the Ways Amazon Tricks You Into Spending More on Prime Day
Amazon’s “Prime Day” event is back for another year: another complex, multi-tentacled network of supposed discounts. But it’s essentially the same as any old sale or coupon – a way to get you to spend more money, pointing out that technically, if you do the math a certain way, you can tell yourself you’re spending less .
After all, the only reason Amazon put on this “event” at all is to make you part with most of your money ( about $11.2 billion of it last year ), even if it’s the company that you only grudgingly support . So let’s take a look at a few of the ways they work overtime to make this happen.
They fire up your FOMO
Any sale, limited in time or limited in stock, is designed to make you afraid of missing out on a great deal. Prime Day is only two days away! Most inventory will be limited! You may miss out if you don’t buy right away! Oh, and by the way, you need to shop on Amazon specifically to get these deals.
The truth is far less worrisome: Prime Day deals have already begun, inventory will be as limited as Amazon wants it to be, and plenty of other retailers are offering competing sales. But even if the deals are really amazing and limited, you can still save money by just… not buying the item. I’m just saying.
They lock you in their ecosystem
It’s called Prime Day because you need to be an Amazon Prime member to get great deals. A Prime membership gives you “free” shipping for a year, so if you’re already a Prime member, you’ll probably end up shopping on Amazon when you want to buy something that can actually come from anywhere. Do you know how many places on earth a person can buy an ab roller? Thousands, perhaps millions. Where did I buy mine from yesterday? Amazon because I’m a Prime member and a first class sucker.
In addition to paying them for the privilege of shopping , Amazon aims to engage you in its world in other ways. Get the best deals on Amazon’s own products like Kindle tablets and Echo smart speakers. This, in turn, aims to make you think that if you want an e-book, you will buy a Kindle e-reader. If you have an Echo, you will be communicating daily with a robot programmed by Amazon.
They create a slippery slope with subscriptions
Some of the Prime Day offers come with subscriptions, such as four free months of Amazon Music Unlimited. There’s a reason free trials ask for your credit card in advance: they hope you forget to cancel before the billing date. A longer trial period may seem generous, but it also increases the likelihood that the account will slip through your fingers. If you choose one of these trial trades, take our advice and set a calendar reminder to cancel .
They create media frenzy
If there was no pre-marketing and a few items in the online store were quietly selling at a slightly lower price for a few days, you might be pleasantly surprised, but do you consider this an important news event? Most likely not.
But Amazon has managed to generate a lot of buzz among news outlets and other websites. Several factors are at work here. One is that media outlets that cover finance or economics in some way think that Amazon is newsworthy in and of itself because it is such a large and powerful company. The other is that websites of all kinds want clicks that come from talking about the important things that everyone else is talking about.
And many websites earn a commission when you click on an Amazon affiliate link, which is why there are so many review and shopping review sites on the internet these days. Posting X number of “best Prime Day deals” (or whatever) is a way these websites can make money for themselves , but they only get a share once you follow the link and give some money to Amazon.
You don’t hear about Prime Day all over the place because the deals are so amazing that they are really newsworthy; you hear about it because everyone involved is contributing to the maintenance of an ecosystem that is ultimately powered by money. Your.
Deals aren’t really deals
I spent most of my morning browsing the “best” Prime Day deals via camelcamelcamel , which tracks Amazon prices over time. And guess what: almost none of the items sell for the best price on Prime Day. Amazon inspires you with the idea of a rare deal by charging the regular price of an item.
For example, there is an Apple Watch priced at $329, which translates into a $70 savings. But this watch first hit $329 in April of this year and has stayed at that price most of the time since then . There were several temporary price increases, but the current price has been holding for more than a month.
Or take the Bowflex Selectech 840 kettlebell (I have to admit that this is not the best type of adjustable kettlebell , but I also admit that I am a snob about such things). You won’t save $80 on this adjustable weight when it’s $119, like most of last month, anyway. Over the past 10 months, it has never gone over $150 and dropped to $99.99 several times .
For an example of something at the lowest price point, look at Kindle Kids, which will retail for $49 instead of $109. Its price history shows that it has been $109 for some time, and frequent sales bring it down to $60-$70 about once a month. So yes, it’s the real deal, but is it good enough (and rare enough) to jump on it? I would only go for it if I was already planning to buy it and was just waiting for a good price, which is the only way to save money on Prime Day .