The Amazon Prime Day has started. There are plenty of deals, but there are a whole lot of products you should not buy.
With the Prime Day on Amazon, numerous deals have started, but which ones are really worth it? Before you slam down and fill your shopping cart with various items: Take a look at our list of things you should not buy on Prime Day.
Because there are a whole lot of products that are not worth buying on Prime Day.
Gift Cards
Gift cards or vouchers are almost never discounted and you should not expect to get hefty discounts on such cards either. This also applies to Black Friday, where there are almost never discounts on cards.
In some cases, at least bonus promotions are offered, which are tied to certain conditions, making them unattractive again:
Manufacturers offer you a top-up bonus, but you have to buy their hardware for several hundred euros. Then, the promised top-up bonus hardly matters. Especially not if you buy hardware for 500 euros and receive 5 euros as a bonus. Sometimes such bonuses are even combined with cashback promotions. The average buyer can no longer keep track of that.
Be careful with bait offers: Some providers try to attract buyers by offering 50-euro gift cards for 47 euros. This way, such “best offers” quickly appear in price finders like Geizhals.de and others. Sometimes only the VAT is omitted, and then added back in the shopping cart.
School Supplies and Office Supplies
If you need new school supplies or other accessories for the office or everyday life, it is worth waiting a few more months. The best deals around schools and offices typically occur in August and September when the new school year begins in most federal states.
You will notice this at the latest when the big discounters have school backpacks, colored pencils, and notebooks in their temporary displays again.
Televisions and Other Large Electrical Devices
Televisions and other large electronic devices are rarely advantageous to buy on Prime Day. The best discounts often occur at the beginning of the year, around December or January. Often, many manufacturers clear out their old series to make room for new devices.
Sometimes you can get up to 50% off top current models at the end of the year – if you can muster that much patience and do not immediately need a new refrigerator or a 4K television.
After the annual CES, the most important electronics fair of the year, new products often hit the market in March/April. It is better to keep an eye out during Cyber Week or actually wait until Christmas.
However, an exception on Prime Day could be Amazon’s own TV devices. There could indeed be significant discounts, because Amazon likes to promote its own products with offers to gain market share. So if you want to reach for Amazon products away from LG, Samsung, and others, that would be an option.
Toys
Toys are rarely worth buying in early summer, especially not on Prime Day. The real price battles for toys usually begin when Christmas is just around the corner.
During the pre-Christmas season, Amazon and retail offer huge discounts so that parents, grandparents, or relatives can buy the desired toys. And here, the competition among the providers is also the largest because everyone is vying for potential customers.
Kendal Perez, a savings expert from Coupon Sherpa, explained to the online magazine Cheapism: “Toys are in high demand during the Christmas season, and retailers often grant higher discounts right before December 25th to tempt parents before the holidays.”
Impulse Purchases
Basically, we would advise against impulse purchases. These are items that you throw into the shopping cart quickly. In most cases, that stuff just collects dust at home, ends up in some closet, or gets chewed by the pet.
Therefore, think carefully before Prime Day about what you really need. This way, you will save yourself annoying wrong purchases and items that you did not actually want.
Google Products
Google offers a wide range of smart devices in the smart home sector. The “problem”: The Google devices are direct competitors to Amazon’s own products, such as Alexa or the Fire TV Stick.
It is therefore unlikely that Amazon will offer Google products cheaper than its own models, which you can already buy cheaply. It may be worth checking for deals with other providers. If you really want to save money on Google products, don’t look at Amazon.
Apple Products
Apple has the same “problem” as Google: Some products like the iPad or Apple TV are direct competitors to Amazon’s own products. It is therefore unlikely that Amazon will sell the competition cheaper than its own products.
It is definitely worth checking other shops or other providers, sometimes even at Apple itself.
Dietary Supplements and Diet Products
Buying supplements can turn out to be quite complicated. Amazon generally requires various certifications and documents for dietary supplements, but there are regular cases of counterfeits. Or you might receive products with ingredients that aren’t listed. This is reported by the online magazine Fool.com.
Even if some offers look incredibly tempting, do not let yourself be tempted to make an impulse purchase. You should make no compromises regarding your health: Because while an unlisted ingredient may just be a violation of one’s lifestyle for some, it can have life-threatening consequences for others.
Therefore, buy from your trusted shop where you are on the safe side, even if it costs a few euros more.
The best tips on how to save money on Prime Day we recommend for reading on Prime Days, which you can find directly here on MeinMMO.
