There’s a strong chance you’ve already seen advertising for Amazon Prime Day. This year’s popular two-day sales event will take place on July 12 and 13, and although some customers may have carefully planned out exactly what they want to buy, another group of customers knows they’ll be making spontaneous purchases by Amazon shopping online on the day of.
While making one or two impulsive purchases when you can get a good bargain may feel “worth it,” this sort of shopping habit may quickly lead to overspending and purchasing stuff you don’t actually need — especially when it’s so simple to just click and buy on Amazon shopping online.
6 Ways to Avoid Impulsive Amazon Prime Day Purchases
Select spoke with financial and behavioural experts to find a few strategies and mental tactics that can protect you from making too many impulsive purchases during Amazon Prime Day. Weekly shopping ideas to help you improve your life.
1. Take a deep breath before making a purchase
With Amazon shopping spanning two days, you can place an item in your cart on the first day and decide to buy it on the next day after waiting 24 hours. This gives you more time to think about it and determine if you actually need the item before purchasing it. “Amazon Prime Day generates a feeling of urgency,” says Lauren Anastasio, a licenced financial planner and director of financial counselling at Stash, a popular investment app.
“In fact, you should take your time.” Anastasio advises thinking about how you will feel about the purchase after a month. If you can envision the expenditure having a significant influence on your life in the future, it’s probably worth it. However, if you foresee any buyer’s regret because you wish you had saved the money or spent it more wisely, it’s better to avoid them. Consider how you would feel if you saw that charge on your bank statement.
Perry Wright, a senior behavioural researcher at Duke University’s Common Cents Lab, encourages shoppers to pause and consider why particular things are on sale. According to Perry, illusions of forced choice and scarcity normalise us to feeling as if we’re being clever shoppers by taking advantage of Amazon Prime Day offers, while the steeply discounted things we see may simply be the consequence of supply factors. For example, a modern device we now lack may appear appealing, but it may be discounted due to a forthcoming technological update.
2. Before making a purchase, visit several stores
The item you’re going to buy on Prime Day could be cheaper at another online retailer, so make sure to research prices across different websites to verify you’re getting the best deal. “Amazon is renowned for changing their pricing on a regular basis,” Anastasio continues. This implies that the list price of an item on Amazon Prime Day may be greater than the list price many days earlier, making the reduction smaller than you’re led to believe.
I should mention that other well-known retailers typically hold their annual sales during the same Amazon Prime Days, making price comparison even more important. Target Deal Days, for example, is an online-only sales event that runs July 11–13 this year, where buyers can score huge discounts on everything from electronics, toys, and cosmetics to home goods, fashion, and groceries.
3. Set boundaries ahead of time – Amazon Prime Day
For Amazon Prime Day, Dan Egan, managing director of behavioral finance and investing at Betterment, a prominent robot-advisor software, advises establishing restrictions ahead of time, including both a dollar amount and a measurable item amount. Even if this restriction is self-imposed, it can successfully deceive you into remaining within your budget.
4. Determine what you want to acquire
According to Wright, Amazon Prime Day is best characterized as a “sushi conveyor belt of products” that can be distracting and tough to filter through. Because the plethora of discounted products might be overwhelming for individuals who visit Amazon.com on Amazon Prime Day, be sure you’re there with a goal. Instead of wandering through random departments you never planned to purchase from, know precisely what you want to enter into the search field-this can look like searching for a generic category such as “snacks” vs. looking for something more particular, such as “savoury snacks in bulk.”
Egan suggests turning off Amazon alerts on your phone to avoid being tempted to buy anything else. Anastasio also cautions against making purchases based only on innovative marketing. “If individuals avoid marketing, unsubscribe from emails, and ignore social media, chances are the actual purchase traffic on Prime Day will decrease,” Anastasio adds.
5. Make a public announcement about your acquisitions
Egan suggests speaking out loud what you intend to buy, claiming that you’ll be less prone to overspending if you say, “I am purchasing this because…” This pushes you to think about the purchase on a deeper level. Even if you describe the impending purchase as a rubber duck, Egan believes it will help you avoid overpaying. You may even talk to yourself in the mirror to see and hear yourself say what you’re buying and truly let it sink in.
6. Put it in your cart but don’t “purchase it now.”
Amazon’s “buy it now” function makes it all too easy to get your shopping done quickly, but it may also obscure how much you’re spending because you’re buying products as one-time purchases rather than adding them to your cart and seeing the final amount. Wright warns against utilising the “buy it now” option on Amazon Prime Day to avoid overspending. “We tend to lose track of individual transactions in huge bundles of purchases,” he explains.
When you’re ready to make an Amazon Prime Day purchase, while the six strategies and mental tactics listed above can assist Amazon Prime Day shoppers avoid making too many impulsive purchases on Amazon Prime Day, individuals who want to take advantage of the sales event to finally buy something they’ve been wanting can do so. When you’re ready to make a planned Prime Day purchase, consider using a top credit card for all of your Amazon Prime Day purchases.
Remember that Prime Day discounts are only available to Amazon Prime members
If you aren’t already a Prime member, there are methods to obtain a subscription at a discount or even for free. The Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Signature Card is currently offering a limited-time welcome bonus for enthusiastic Amazon shoppers and Prime members through July 29. New cards may get a $200 Amazon gift card right away and receive up to 10% cash back on specially marked Amazon purchases, with rotating items and categories, among other cash-back benefits.