Amazon Prime Day's members-only deals prompts trash talk from eBay

(Image credit: eBay)

Prime Day is getting closer to that July 15 launch, but other retailers are scrambling already trying to tempt buyers to their store before Amazon gobble up everyone's cash in the sales event of the summer. And you'll want to keep an eye on our selection of the best Amazon Prime Day deals to make sure you don't miss out.

eBay is going extra early today and calling out Amazon on its policy of Prime Day deals being for Prime members only. Rob Hattrell, VP of eBay UK, said:

"eBay always puts its customers and sellers first. We don’t think we should be charging our customers a membership fee for them to enjoy great discounts and offers, and for the next fifteen days we will be sharing our best ever discounts with them."

"There will be deals on thousands of products across eBay that customers actually want, not just discounts on products no one ever buys or on end-of-life stock. This includes huge savings on smart speakers, big screen LED TVs, electric toothbrushes and garden gadgets. The deals will be updated every day, so customers should keep an eye out on site for all the amazing offers, and enjoy shopping.”

That's what we call 'fighting talk' here in Deals Town, but we're quite happy to watch retailers sling a little mud, as long as they back it up with great deals. Some retailers are certainly all talk when it comes to throwing a big sale. We will of course be checking out the offers at a wide range of retailers on Prime Day to make sure you're not missing out on any better deals.

It's not just eBay UK going on the offensive. Over in the US, eBay is actually saying it's not only having a sale on Prime Day, but it will knock extra money off the deals if Amazon's site crashes again. Check out the full story of the US sale.

eBay's Prime Day-beating plans

So what has eBay got up its sleeve? Well, the 15 days of deals have kicked off already and will continue beyond Prime Day.

There will be 'A Week of Savings' with discounts of up to 70% off electronics and 'everyday essentials'. 50-inch TVs and Google Home Minis will be in the mix, but that's as much as eBay is willing to share at this stage.

There will also be '£79 deals' a direct jab at the Amazon Prime annual membership fee where items from Simba, Vax, Oral B, Google and more will be discounted down to £79 (Google Home Hub should be a solid bet there, although we've seen it even cheaper this week elsewhere). Someone should probably tell eBay they could just get a free 30-day trial of Prime to last them through the sale.

To be fair, there are some ~~hot~~ half-decent deals on eBay right now (see below) on the first day of the sale. And don't forget, these aren't second-hand items sold from someone having a clear out. Most deals are brand new stock (there are some refurbished iPhones in there too), from professional leading name electronics stores who also have a merchant page on eBay. We're quite used to spotting cheap laptop deals and TV sales from Currys, AO, Crampton & Moore, Argos and the like on eBay so there's certainly potential for some genuine Prime Day-beating deals.

Here are a couple of our favourite deals so far:

So yes, shots fired indeed. Shots from a spud gun at this stage though mainly, but things could get interesting the closer we get to Prime Day for sure. Stay tuned and we'll bring you the best deals so you don't have to scroll past the nonsense.

Brendan Griffiths is the managing Editor of Hardware & eCommerce - GamesRadar.com at Future. After spending his formative years as a games journalist, he joined Future Publishing and TechRadar in 2016. He manages a small team and wrote, commissioned, and maintained a vast collection of e-commerce content published around the world with particular focus on the US and UK. In 2020 Brendan joined another Future website, GamesRadar, as Managing Editor of the Hardware and eCommerce team to take charge of the site's eCommerce strategy, hardware reviews and buying guides.

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