What The Tech: app of the day, Keepa

CHARLOTTE, NC — Amazon Prime Days are coming July 12-13. If you’re unfamiliar, shopping holidays were a creation of Amazon and were bigger (at least for Amazon) than Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday. The Retail Me Not app predicts Prime shoppers will spend an average of $388 on Prime Day this year.

Prime members can expect deep discounts on Amazon products and everything from electronics to toys to apparel.

A fun part of Amazon Prime Days is the lightning deals. Low prices that only last for an hour or until things sell out. Unless you spend all day watching for a low price, you might need this app called Keepa. Or you ?

Keepa is a free app for iPhone, Android devices and web browsers. Like other apps, it sends alerts when an item you’re tracking drops in price. I searched for a portable movie projector in the Keepa app which led me to the listing on Amazon. Right now it sells for $90 new. I’d like to know if this becomes a lightning deal on Prime Day so I can set an alert to get notified if it does. You simply enter the price you are looking for and if it reaches that price or less, you will receive a notification on your phone. This ensures that you won’t miss a Lightning Deal if you open the notification.

This is useful, but Amazon’s shopping app does the same thing if you add the item to a wishlist. If the price drops, you will usually receive a notification.

Keepa prices are not always accurate. It lists the projector’s current price as $89.99, but it’s actually listed for $80 on Amazon with a 15% coupon. Prices change quickly.

But here’s why the Keepa app is useful. It has a price history. At the push of a button, Keepa’s tracker shows the same projector hovering around $90. Looking closer, I can see that at the end of April the price dropped to $68.84. It fell back to that price in June. That tells me there’s a good chance it will hit that price again. Keepa also warns me that the projector will be part of a lightning deal at a certain date and time. It’s pretty handy.

Keepa also shows me prices for used and refurbished items.

Do Prime Day shoppers need the Keepa app? Amazon’s shopping app does a great job of alerting you to price drops and lightning deals. But if you’re doing Prime Day prep work, Keepa might be worth keeping on your phone.