How to Find the Best Deals During Amazon, Flipkart Sales This Week

Amazon and Flipkart will run their first big festive season sales this week. Amazon Great Indian Festival 2020 sale will begin at midnight on October 16 for Prime subscribers, and from October 17 for everyone else. Flipkart's Big Billion Days 2020 sale will kick off at 12pm (noon) on October 15 for Plus members, and October 16 for everyone else. Both the sales will offer hundreds of deals on mobile phones, TVs, laptops, speakers, and other tech products.

In case you're looking to grab some great deals during the Amazon and Flipkart sales, we've prepared a simple guide you can follow that can help you find the best deals during this week's Great Indian Festival and Big Billion Days 2020 sale.

1. Compare before you buy

A simple thing most people overlook during online festive season sales is comparison shopping. Both Amazon and Flipkart are known to match prices for some of the most common deals during the sale. Buying an iPhone during Big Billion Days 2020 sale? Make sure you check prices on Amazon too. Getting a great deal on a big-screen TV on Great Indian Festival 2020 sale? Make sure you see what Flipkart's Big Billion Days 2020 sale is offering before you buy.

Comparison shopping isn't just about comparing the deal prices. You should factor in all the available bundled offers as well. This means, exchange offers, possible additional discounts with some payment methods, cashback offers, brand-specific exchange incentives, and no-cost EMI offers. At times, you can end up with a better overall deal even if the discounted price on a platform is more than the other one.

2. Keep an eye out for deals revealed

One thing that's drastically changed over the last few years is that both Amazon and Flipkart reveal some of their biggest upcoming offers ahead of the sale. This year is no different, with Flipkart and Amazon announcing their big festive season sales earlier than usual, and then using the available time to show off some of the major upcoming deals and offers on mobile phones, tablets, laptops, TVs, and other products.

If you're serious about grabbing a good deal, make sure you check these teaser pages on Flipkart Big Billion Days 2020 and Amazon Great Indian Festival landing pages at least a few times before the sales go live. You'll have a clear idea of who is going to offer what, and you can plan accordingly.

3. Navigate like a pro

With hundreds of deals going live, Flipkart and Amazon are impossibly hard to navigate when these sales go live. During these sales, several pages showcase 'great' deals and offers with 'lowest prices', but chances are that you'll have a hard time locating the stuff that you really need to buy.

The best thing you can do, apart from manually searching for a product on Amazon and Flipkart, is browsing through regular category pages on these platforms. These are normally updated to reflect the latest deals. Another thing you can do is use the mobile apps that are relatively easier to navigate during these festive season sales.

4. Arrive early during the sale

The best deals can survive anything from a few minutes to an hour at the most. If you're lucky, it'll be available again the next day, but you don't want to take any chances. To make sure you grab those 'crazy' deals, you'll need to arrive early.

How early you ask? If the sale is going live at noon, you should be there at least five minutes early, and signed in to your account. If you've already set goals for a particular deal, you should keep that product page open, and refresh it just when the sale goes live.

5. Add products to your shopping cart/wishlist ahead of the sales

Planning ahead for these online festive season sales is great if you're looking to both save money, and prevent yourself from impulse buying. Make a list of products that you really need to buy during Big Billion Days 2020 and Great Indian Festival 2020 sale, and add these products to your shopping cart or your wishlist. This makes it infinitely easier to see if they've received discounts during the sale, and helps you checkout faster. Amazon also lets you turn on notifications on its mobile apps if anything on your wishlist gets a discount.

6. Grab those flash sales

Besides discounted prices, Amazon and Flipkart also offer a wide range of deals during Great Indian Festival and Big Billion Days sale in the form of flash sales. In case you're new, flash sales are open for a limited period and carry a small stock that usually runs out very quickly.

There's no easy way to grab them but to make sure you're tuned in to scheduled flash sales (thanks to teaser pages), and arrive just when one is about to go live. But you've got to be careful, you may end up damaging your budget for these sales if you buy impulsively during these flash sales.

7. Stay away from shady sellers, deals

If a deal seems too good to be true, it normally is. A word of caution during online festive season sales, stay away from such deals. Always ensure you check sellers ratings and customer feedback before you grab one of those insane deals. While both Amazon and Flipkart have become better at catching shady sellers early on, but being careful always helps in the long run.

8. Use bundled exchange and payment offers

Both Amazon and Flipkart sales will offer a large set of bundled offers. These offers come in the form of exchange discounts and payment offers that can help lower the effective overall prices of the products you're buying. A no-cost EMI payment option is also perfect for those big-ticket purchases you're planning to make online. Amazon will be offering 10 percent instant discount to HDFC Bank cardholders, while Flipkart has tied up with State Bank of India to offer 10 percent instant discount during the Big Billion Days 2020 sale.

9. Sign up for Prime, Flipkart Plus

Amazon will allow Prime members to access its Great Indian Festival 2020 sale 24 hours before anyone else. Flipkart will also open doors to its Plus members 12 hours before the Big Billion Days sale opens for everyone. It goes without saying, it really helps to get an early access to these sales.

In case you're not willing to spend money on a subscription, several mobile and broadband companies offer complimentary access to Amazon Prime subscription. To join Flipkart Plus, you're likely to be eligible if you're been an active shopper on the platform.

10. Don't overdo it

Last words, don't lose yourself during these online festive season sales. It's better to end up with a few items that you actually need at a decently discounted price than buying several products you won't use at deep discounts. Make sure you assign yourself a budget, and don't overshoot it.

We'll be covering the best tech deals from Amazon Great Indian Festival and Flipkart Big Billion Days 2020 sale when they go live. Stay tuned to our updates.

Amazon and Flipkart will have great deals on iPhone 11, Galaxy S20+ this week, but will there be enough stocks? We discussed this on last week's episode of Orbital, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.