Amazon Prime Day Sale 2018 Starts July 16: Here's How You Can Get the Best Deals

Amazon has been organising its Prime Day sale for the last three years. Last year, the e-commerce giant introduced its global sale event in India. After the Prime Day 2017 event, Amazon India claimed that it managed to sign up a lot of customers to its Prime membership, and the sale was an overall success. This year, Amazon is holding its Prime Day sale starting July 16. Last year's sale lasted 30 hours while this year Amazon's Prime Day event will go on for 36 hours. The Prime Day sale is almost like any other major sale event you'd expect but with one major exception—it is only open to Amazon Prime members. You're also eligible if you're currently on a 30-day trial period.

You can expect deals on a large number of products on Amazon during the sale. These deals can be broadly divided into two main categories: deals that last one full day, and then there are deals that are available only for a few hours, more commonly called Lightning Deals. Going through the entire sale can be a frustrating task, but we'll help you out with that. We will cover the best deals from the sale, so make sure you log on to Gadgets360 once the sale goes live.

While Prime Day is a global event, Amazon India seems to be working extra hard to make sure this year's sale is even bigger. Some of the sellers we've spoken to told us that the online retailer is pushing sellers to offer bigger discounts this year, promising them a massive increase in sales. The company will be heavily promoting the Prime Day sale across all its marketing channels.

Amazon Prime Day Sale 2018: What to expect?

Prime Day sale will begin at 12pm on July 16 and will continue till the next day. The sale will include thousands of one-day deals as well as the short-lived Lightning Deals.

Amazon has already put up a huge page on its website, giving everyone a glimpse of its Prime Day event. The most obvious products that go on sale, and are completely worth getting, are Amazon's own products. These include Kindle e-readers, Fire TV Stick, Amazon Echo smart speakers, and even AmazonBasics products across various categories.

Another major product category that gets the most attention is smartphones. Even though recently we haven't seen any large discounts on smartphones during sales like these, if you're looking to buy a new smartphone it should be worth waiting till the Prime Day sale to at least see what’s on offer. Most Amazon-exclusive smartphones will be available at a discount.

However, a lot of consumers do complain that sales like these do not really offer good deals. That does hold true for some products, but most good deals barely last a few hours (some last only a few minutes).

Should I sign up for Amazon Prime just for this sale?

Amazon Prime does offer a lot of value, but it's not really meant for everyone. If you don't buy more than a few products each month and you're comfortable with slow shipping, you're not an ideal user for Prime.

The Prime membership offers free fast delivery options with no minimum shopping value, access to Prime Video and Prime Music, exclusive deals from time to time, and more. If you're already using an Amazon Echo device, chances are you're already a Prime subscriber.

Amazon Prime membership costs ₹999 in India for a full year, and you can now also subscribe to the ₹129 monthly plan if you don't want to use it for more than a few months - as we mentioned earlier, you can sign up for Prime trial just to get access to the Prime Day deals or even pay for it just for a month and then cancel, if you want. Airtel even offers Prime Membership free to some customers, as does Vodafone to the subscribers of its Red postpaid plans.

How to find the best deals during the Amazon Prime Day Sale 2018?

If you have already figured out what you want, you could simply add the products in your Amazon account's wishlist. Amazon's mobile apps normally send a push notification whenever products in your wishlist go on a Lightning Deal. If not, you should start planning ahead about what you want to buy.

During the sale, Amazon is more likely to offer the lowest prices, but it always makes sense to do a simple price comparison on other leading marketplaces. It only takes a few seconds and assures you that you're getting a good deal.

Before checking out, always make sure you use the bundled payment offers. Amazon will be offering instant discounts on HDFC Bank cards and for its Amazon Pay wallet users too. Pick whichever works best for you.

On the day of the sale, we'll be scanning all the deals to bring you the best ones available.

Will Amazon Prime Day 2018 sale be bigger than its Diwali sale? We discussed that on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.