The main deals of the day are mostly…the price of products before disputes

I’m the writer who comes to you every time Amazon hosts a Big Bang deal- Your hard earned money should not be cancelled Just because there’s a big “Prime Big Deal” sticker on it. Now that we’re well into October, and with another day under us, we’ve noticed a new trend. Prices have risen to the point that “trades” today are much less influential than they used to be. In some cases, products with limited time discounts cost what they used to cost back at launch.

Main Day of the Year (Amazon It’s starting to exhaust us With two main day events of the year in 2023), it’s not as outrageous as the company’s four-day shopping extravaganza in July. I’ve been sifting through the deals on the page from Tuesday to Wednesday, and I’m finding more sincere discounts for consumer tech items, like a 2025 Asus Rog Strix G16 (With older INTEL CORE I7-14650HX CPU and NVIDIA RTX 5060 GPU) For $1200 For its list price of $1,500. Amazon and third-party retailers typically raise the base price of a product to make deals seem more expensive than they are. Now, prices can compare to previous devices before Trump dropped his first set International tariffs Back in April.

Even if deals this October are quieter and more realistic, it’s only because suggested retail prices have risen due to Trump’s ongoing obsession with tariffs. the ROG Strix G16 from 2024 With a 13th generation Intel chip and an RTX 4060 it usually goes for $1,250 and $1,350 throughout last year to June of this year. Price record site camelcamelcamel It shows that the price has not moved from $1,384.50 over the past few months. Newer parts will always command higher prices, but 2025 proved the egregious exception to the rule. Prices are generally higher compared to what they usually are, which means the deals are much less of a bargain for consumers.

Rush Day may be the only way to get some products at the pre-party price. The child-centric video game console called NEX Playground was originally set to be released retail For $200. There’s a “limited time deal” on Amazon to take the price from the $250 list price to what it would have originally cost Before June of this year. Other devices show how the supposed “deals” are worse than they would have been without tariffs. Take GoPro Hero13 Black From last year. GoPro isn’t launching a successor, although there are new ones MAX2 360 camera. The Hero13 Black originally retailed for $400 USD. While Amazon has a special deal for the $330 camera with the wide-angle lens attachment (that bundle launched just before Prime July), GoPro is also selling the basic camera for $360, claiming the retail price is $430. Price history data It shows how the device has risen to this price on and off since before July and Amazon’s first day of 2025 (or really, we should call it “key week at this point”).

The deals aren’t great on Amazon either

Pricing isn’t just a mistake on Amazon. Tariff-born issues with deals are everywhere. Sean Hollister is up first spotted What may be the first example of AMD Radeon RX 9070 Graphics card for PC, selling for $550 at PC parts retailer Newegg. That’s what AMD promised It would cost us when the company first announced its GPUs in February, but shortly after launch, third-party makers were selling them for $600 or more. The card everyone wanted, Radeon RX 9070 XTwent for over $600 MSRP. Even today, you can’t find a 4K-ready GPU for less than $650, on sale or otherwise. AMD’s poor communication to customers started this problem, but tariffs helped keep prices high. Only recently have prices on GPUs like Nvidia’s RTX 5080 Come to the original $1000 Suggested retail price.

Pricing can feel esoteric. We know of many instruments whose prices have risen explicitly due to tariffs. Video game consoles were particularly hit. A New PlayStation 5 It costs $550, $50 more than in 2020. Xbox High prices Consoles have sold twice in the space of a few months, and now a standard Xbox Series costs $650, $150 more than it sold for at launch. None of these devices are on sale today. Maybe they will have a discount during Black Friday. No matter what temporary price drops in the future, they will necessarily be a worse deal than before Trump started his international trade war with every foreign country and penguin island.

Tariffs incentivize companies to increase prices or Otherwise keep their products out of the United States entirely. Whether the tariffs are justified by the price increases or companies treat it as the best excuse for rising costs, it doesn’t matter anymore. We now live in a world where gadgets don’t just get cheaper as they get older – they may cost more. Trump’s import taxes are worsening the offer-obsessed online ecosystem that Amazon started on his first day in 2015. The end result is that consumers will have no idea what products are worth it anymore.