A primer to save on Amazon Prime Day

NEW YORK -- Amazon Prime Day is coming up.

Users will reap the bonanza of blowout deals starting at 3 p.m. on July 16.

But if you're not a subscriber, don't worry, you can still take advantage of Prime Day prices by signing up for a temporary membership for free!

Just click on the 30-day trial membership is free (and Amazon Prime is $12.99/month) and you will gain access to the deals offered throughout Prime Day.

But if you don't want to pay the per month charge to hang on to your membership, just cancel before the end of the free 30-day period.

Next, start price checking now.

Search for the items you're interested in and sign up for the "watching list."

That way you'll be alerted through the Amazon app when that deal is about to go live on Prime Day.

Lightning will strike throughout Prime Day, in the form of lightning-fast sales, which will come and go in a flash.

Go to Amazon's deal of the day page.

Lightning deals will only be available for a short time or have a limited number of items available, so for these, the key is to act fast.

Your best bet on Prime Day is to do your homework, don't impulse buy, make sure you read reviews on sale items, make sure what you're getting has all the bells and whistles you want, and is really a sale price.

Research shows these categories offer the best discounts on Prime Day: Toys, some tech, TVs and Amazon's own family of products - the Alexa, Echo, and Kindle were up to half off last year.