Amazon's Big Spring Sale is 2 days away — how to avoid scams, get the best deals & more shopping tricks

Amazon's Big Spring Sale 2024 is right around the corner, kicking off on March 20-25 in Canada. It's the perfect time to snag incredible savings across a wide range of categories, including tech, home & living, fashion, beauty and more. Although a Prime membership can unlock exclusive deals and offers, savvy shopping requires a little more than just that. If you want to maximize your shopping experience, you'll need a few tricks up your sleeve. Keep reading to find out how you can save time, avoid scams and shop for the best deals during Amazon's Big Spring Sale.

1. Save time and make a wish list

Unless you're, let's say, a Yahoo Canada shopping editor, you won't be spending hours a day hunting down Amazon deals on March 20-25. For people with jobs, kids and other fish to fry, this is where Amazon's Wishlist comes in handy.

Your private shopping list, found in the "Account & Lists" tab, allows you to store all your wish list items in one location and monitor price changes. If you have an upcoming birthday or anniversary on the calendar, you can also see friends' wish lists (if they give you access) for easy gift shopping.

2. Know how to find the best deals

Amazon’s shopping pages are divided into easy-to-shop sections that give you access to the best daily deals, even outside of the Big Spring Sale. Under the Deals Store tab, each section is filled with limited-time offers.

• Deals of the Day: Here you’ll find a large selection of items that have been marked down for 24 hours — however, when the clock strikes midnight, prices (almost always) go back up.

• Lightning Deals: These time-limited sales last for just a few hours, while supplies last. Keep track of the progress bar because once it reaches 100 per cent or time runs out, the discount is over. Prime members receive access to these deals 30 minutes before the public.

• Coupons: Get the best prices on the items you know and love with en ever-changing selection of coupons.

• Big Spring Sale early deals: Perfect for people who might be busy during the Big Spring Sale, Amazon's early deals section includes a wide assortment of products that are already marked down to their Big Spring Sale prices.

• Prime-Exclusive Deals: Beyond the Big Spring Sale, Prime members have access to exclusive deals not available to non-Prime members.

3. Use price comparison sites

While Amazon's Big Spring Sale may have a large marketing budget, that doesn't necessarily mean it will have the best deals at the time.

In Canada, for example, there's a possibility retailers like Best Buy Canada, Walmart, Wayfair and Canadian Tire might host their own rival sales. And while competing retailers may not offer Amazon's coveted one or two-day shipping, their prices may be worth the extra wait time.

A price comparison website will allow you to compare and filter products based on several metrics, including features, reviews, and of course, the bottom dollar.

Below, you can find several popular price comparison websites to test out ahead of the Big Spring Sale.

• CamelCamelCamel

• Google Shopping

• Shopzilla

• PriceFinder

4. Stock up on basics

While you may have your sights set on a new smart TV or air fryer, Amazon's Big Spring Sale is a prime opportunity to stock up on everyday essentials: toilet paper, laundry detergent, coffee pods — you get the gist.

To shop the nitty-gritty basics, there are three key departments you'll want to keep tabs on (found on the left-hand side, under "All" and "Shop by Department"):

1. Home, Garden, Pets & Tools

2. Grocery & Whole Foods Market

3. Health & Beauty

This is where you'll find everything from dish soap and toothpaste to the coffee pods that will help fuel your Big Spring Sale shopping spree.

5. Know how to detect fake reviews and scams

While the bulk of Amazon sellers and products are trusted name brands, that's not to say the retailer isn't without its fake reviews, sketchy sellers and scams.

Amazon deals are like anything else — if they look too good to be true, they probably are.

Let's go back to our AirPods as an example. Apple will never have a sale of, let's say, 50 per cent off. They just won't. You may find refurbished or open-box products for half-off, but authentic, brand-new Apple products will rarely be more than 10-25 per cent off. If you see a discount higher than that, lead with caution, not optimism.

Scam-spotting websites like Fakespot use AI technology to weed out scam artists and filter products by reviewer legitimacy.

An easy way to spot a scam: Read the reviews — the bad ones. If a product has hundreds of seemingly-perfect five-star reviews, but its one-and-two-star ratings repeatedly mention that something is off: Take note. As the saying goes: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

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