*By Max Godnick*
This year, Amazon's Prime Day is really more of a day and a half.
The thirty-six hour global shopping spree is the longest promotion in the event's four year history. While everything from light bulbs to luggage will be on sale, the made-up holiday is meant to drive shoppers to Amazon's own lines of products and devices.
"It's a really ingenious supervillain-type of idea by Jeff Bezos," said Matt Swider, the senior mobile and buying guides editor at TechRadar, in an interview with Cheddar on Thursday.
Prime Day's best deals have always centered around the company's own offerings such as the Echo, Kindle, and Fire suites. Swider says he expects the prices of those items to hit all-time lows when the event starts on July 16th.
"It's almost like the GoPros and the Playstations and the XBoxes are there to tempt you to the site, and then you'll buy Amazon products" he said.
This year, Amazon will extend the Prime Day deals to its brick-and-mortar Whole Foods and Amazon Go operations, bringing the day of savings into the real world for the first time ever.
Prime Day is Amazon's answer to the biggest shopping days of the holiday season: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Swider said the company picked July because it's in a relatively quiet period in the national cycle of holidays and pop-culture events. While it hasn't quite lived up to the standards set by the end-of-the-year shopping rush, Prime Day fills a niche all its own: affordable home goods.
"It can't compare if you're looking for a Black Friday or a Cyber Monday," cautioned Swider. "If you're looking to pick up an item or two that you've been putting off, this is the time to buy it."
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/everything-you-need-to-know-about-amazons-biggest-prime-day-yet)
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