Amazon held its second annual "Prime Day" sale on Tuesday, July 12th. For the uninitiated, this is essentially a take on the concept of Christmas in July. Many things on Amazon are discounted, and those discounts come up at different times through the course of the day. Each discount is part of a limited lot so, for popular items, timing is of the essence.
What exactly will be on sale is unclear at the beginning of the event, though if the very short history can be relied upon, Amazon's own products - Kindles, Echo, etc - can be expected to be a part of the mix. Otherwise it's an event that largely involves scrolling through currently available and upcoming products to see if anything trips your fancy.
As an employed person, a sale that takes place on a weekday doesn't really afford the opportunity to spend a lot of time searching for deals (though it does go late into the evening). As such, I've taken the strategy of checking in to it later in the day, and mostly to see if anything I've been looking at, but holding off on, is on sale. Last year I managed to pick up a couple of battery packs for charging devices, one of which I keep in the car, the other I carry with me and use on my bike.
This year I ended up getting three items:
- The newer version of the Jumbl Bluetooth Audio Receiver that I wrote about a little over a year ago. As I noted then, these are relatively inexpensive, and the newer version has an upgraded version of Bluetooth, plus a standard microusb charging port.
- Bluedio over-the-ear headphones. These are Bluetooth headphones of the large, padded variety. I've been looking for something like this for a while. I really enjoy music, and like to listen to it loud, but in a household with other people the opportunity to do so is limited. These were inexpensive, with pretty decent reviews.
- Lampat desk lamp. This is an item I've been looking at for well over a year. I am a... little fussy when it comes to selecting furniture and lighting, since they are typically items you keep for a long time. This is something that I've liked the look of and, as a desk worker, I prefer task lighting to overhead lighting. But it originally ran at a much higher price.
To be clear, I'm not really a shopper. This sale reflects one of the very rare occasions on which I go into a store or a website just to see what's there - most of the time I'm looking for something specific. And - as with other "bargain" opportunities - you can't just assume that Amazon has the lowest price. For myself, I mostly find that it presents an opportunity to pick up a thing or two that I've been interested in at a price point that won't leave me disappointed if it didn't turn out quite as good as I'd hoped.