It's less than a week away until Amazon Prime Day's 48-hour sales event, which is set to start at 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT Tuesday, July 11, and go through Wednesday, July 12. 

Amazon has not revealed exactly how many items will be available for sale. However, past years have seen millions of items up for grabs with great deals. 

Amazon starts with early deals on its products, and several early Prime Day deals can be shopped for now. The number of categories that will have deals available has not yet been announced either; however, you can likely expect deals from a wide number of categories during the main Prime Day event, including major TV brands, smart home devices, fashion, beauty & wellness, furniture, pet supplies, tools, fitness equipment and more. 

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How to work the deals. Be fast! 

Prime Day deals can expire in minutes, and some deals conclude when inventory is gone. Inside the Prime Day event are three different promotions: 

Spotlight Deals:  These are typically larger, more expensive items that are available for a limited time. 

Gold Box Deals of the Day: These are smaller, less expensive items that are available for a limited time. 

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Lighting Deals: These are the most popular type of Prime Day deal. They're typically on very limited quantities of products and only last a few minutes. 

I rank these in order of least urgent to most urgent. The Lighting Deals almost always offer the best prices and last for a small window of time or when sold out — sometimes even just minutes.  Even though it may look like a deal is gone, there's a tip below that could provide an easy workaround to getting the deal anyway. 

How to get a cheap Amazon Prime membership 

You can still participate in Prime Day even if you’ve never had a Prime membership before, including getting a 30-day free Amazon Prime trial and additional discounts if you're a student or if you've got a Medicaid or EBT card.  

Find out what discount you may qualify for to reduce the cost of a Prime membership by heading to CyberGuy.com/Amazon 

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My Prime Day battle plan tips 

Create a Wishlist on Amazon: Add everything you buy regularly throughout the year like dog food, light bulbs, staple goods, etc. Add upcoming birthdays and big-ticket items you have been holding off on buying and get your holiday list done for Christmas gifts way ahead of time while saving huge.

"Join Waitlist" on sold-out products you want and missed: Think it's sold out? Maybe not. Items sitting in another shopper's cart expire if not purchased within 15 minutes. If you are on a waitlist, you could get notified that the deal is yours. 

Download the Amazon smartphone or tablet app to see deals first: The app shows deals coming first and allows you to create a "watch this deal" list to get notified when a deal is going live. 

Say "Alexa, what are your deals?" for exclusive offers: You can power through this audio form of deals by saying "Alexa, next" as they are being described to advance to the next deal. Voice shopping is a complete hassle, and Amazon knows it. That's why they are tempting us to try it with even better deals that you can find on the site. 

READ THIS BEFORE SIGNING UP FOR AMAZON CLINIC

Compare prices at other retailers: look at prices for brands like BestBuy, Walmart, Kohl's and Target since so many other sources are taking advantage of the Prime Day excitement. 

Watch out for these losing Prime Day mishaps 

Avoid Unknown Brands that can often disappoint.

Avoid Fake Reviews by using fakespot.com. Instead of adding its browser extension, just link to the search field to copy and paste an Amazon product listing. Fakespot will analyze to show a letter grade and explanation. The goal is to weed out fake reviews and identify troubled listings. 

Avoid overpaying by checking the lowest price history at camelcamelcamel.com. A price history of almost every Amazon item is recorded here to show if you are getting the lowest price. 

Avoid the Amazon Assistant browser plug-in for privacy concerns. While Amazon's browser plug-in can make comparing items and tracking deals convenient, it also comes at a cost to your privacy in the way it can track your web browsing activity. 

AMAZON MAY SOON OFFER FREE WIRELESS PHONE SERVICE

How to find the best early Amazon Prime Day deals 

Amazon also offers early Prime Day deals before the real Prime Day if you wish to get a head start.  

Check out my 10 Best Early Deals by heading to Cyberguy.com/Amazon  

Kurt's key takeaways 

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Prime Day is one of the biggest online shopping days of the year, and you deserve to get all the products you want. Make sure you're taking all my tips into account and getting yourself prepared beforehand because the last thing you want is to have to pay full price on an item you're dying to get. 

Do you feel like you’re saving more this year versus last year? What items would you like to see get discounted during Prime Day? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact 

For more of my security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to Cyberguy.com/Newsletter 

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