Retailers are running July 4th sales the week after Prime Day, which scrambles the usual deal calendar.
Normally, July 4th discounts serve as a warm-up act for mid-July Prime Day bargains. This year, Amazon flipped the script and ran Prime Day earlier, so the holiday sales that follow are more of an encore than a preview. Best Buy is hosting its own 4th of July event, REI has outdoor gear marked down through the week, and a handful of Apple products are selling at pre-price-hike prices — meaning you're paying what things cost before Apple raised them, not getting a true discount. The standout hardware deal is the 65-inch LG C5 OLED at $1,099.99: Amazon's original price was $2,699.99 and Best Buy's was $1,999.99, so the savings gap between the two retailers is significant even though the sale price lands the same. Other genuinely reduced items include the 11-inch iPad Air M3 at $499 (down from $749, with cellular), the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless at $249.99, and the Insta360 X5 at $434.99.
The deals worth scrutinizing are the Apple ones. The HomePod at $299.99 and certain iPad models are just being sold at their pre-hike prices — no retailer markdown, no promotional discount. Calling that a sale is a marketing choice, not a financial one. The Apple AirTag four-pack at $89 is a real $10 off, at least.
Post-Prime Day weeks have historically seen deal quality drop as retailers clear inventory. This year's calendar inversion makes July 4th the first real post-Prime clearance window — which means the best prices may already be behind us.