Tips for Shopping Amazon

March 20, 2010 3:00 a.m.

Amazon is my very favorite place to shop online for many reasons. First of all they have EVERYTHING. Second, you can usually count on their prices to be the lowest or at least competitive with other sites. And my favorite reason is the DEALS. There are lots of ways to find deals at Amazon whether you are shopping for a specific product or just browsing for a gift idea. But it can take a little bit of knowledge about Amazon.com to find the deals...here is all of my "expert" advice for anyone who is wanting to get a little more out of their Amazon dollar!

Pricing Mystery:

Amazon.com is a mystery when it comes to pricing. Many times you will find that they have the lowest price of anywhere online. Other times the price will be inflated to a crazy level. And when an item goes on sale, it may only stay at that price for a few hours before jumping back up to regular price or some random price in between. It is so hard to keep track of prices that move by the minute! There are a couple of ways to keep track of prices or watch for the price you want. First, there is a website called CamelCamelCamel.com that will track an item on Amazon and alert you if it reaches a price that you indicate. This is a great option if you want to buy a specific item at a specific price. You may have to wait a while, but if your price is reasonable, you will likely end up with the item you want at the price you want. Another way to watch the price of an item is to add it to your cart and hit "Save for Later." Every time you look at your cart, it will let you know if the price of that item has changed. That way if the price drops to a level you want, you can buy it then! And if you find something that is truly a HOT deal, but it THEN. Don’t wait a day…you will likely miss out! (I’m still kicking myself for not buying that awesome dress-up pilot costume for $14 in December…I waited a week and it was $45!)

Also…don’t be fooled by Amazon advertising a really high “regular” price and a huge percentage off on sale or clearance items. I have found more than once that they have inflated the regular price so that the sale price looks like a better deal. My advice is to always do a quick search of other merchants when looking at a specific item to make sure the price Amazon is offering is the best one and is actually as good of a deal as you think it is.

Save On Shipping:

Amazon.com has a couple of options for free shipping. The first is open to anyone and is called Super Saver Shipping. When you spend $25 on qualifying products, you can get them all shipped for free. The key is to make sure the products you are buying are eligible for Super Saver Shipping…most products sold by Amazon.com (not a third party vendor) are eligible and will say so on their page. Something that always seems to happen to me with Super Saver Shipping is that I will want to buy an item that is $24.97 or something and only need a tiny bit more to get that free shipping amount. Well, check out FillerItem.com where you can search for a very cheap item to bump you over $25 so you can get free shipping. There are items for as little as $.11 (things like rulers, pencil sharpeners, or individual baseball cards).

Another option that will help you save on shipping is called Amazon Prime. With Amazon Prime, you can get free two-day shipping on ANY qualifying purchase with no minimum. This is awesome when it comes to clearance finds because you can buy something for $3 and get it shipped to your house for free without worrying about spending $25. However, Amazon Prime has a yearly fee of $79. You can add up to 4 family members to your membership, but that price is still pretty steep. There are occasionally free trials available and I highly encourage signing up for those when you can! Right now you can snag a month trial membership HERE. Just make sure that you turn off the “auto renewal” option so that you are not signed up for the yearly subscription automatically at the end of the month.

Shop the Deals:

Amazon has a few pages that offer hot deals. These are where I go first when I’m looking for a bargain. First is the Gold Box. Every day Amazon has one main product that is marked down to an unusually low price. There are also “Lightning Deals” each day that are only available for a few hours or until they are sold out. The items on this page are usually hot deals, but it is totally random. You never know what you will find, so if you see something you need, snap it up!

There are also Outlet pages for each category. These pages are hit or miss. Sometimes the deals there aren’t all that great, but every so often you will find something amazing. But if you are shopping for a specific type of product, definitely hit the outlet to see if there is an old model or slightly different product for a better price.

There is also a Friday Sale each week on Friday. Again, these deals are hit or miss and require a lot of scrolling through and searching, but you may just come up with a great price on something you need!

I also love the Bargain Books page for great deals on books for adults and kids. Like right now you can get “Llama Llama Mad at Mama” for just $6.40 in hardback. It’s a great place to look for a gift for anyone!

And last, I always check the “Movers and Shakers” pages in each category (you can usually find them by clicking on the “Bestsellers” tab and then you will see a tab that says “Movers and Shakers”...here is a link to the Toys page). This is the page that lists any items that have jumped in popularity over the last 24 hours. A lot of times the products here have become bestsellers because the price has dropped dramatically.

Toy Clearance:

In the fall, Amazon will start heating up their toy clearance deals. (Even though it is months away, it is worth mentioning!) They always have toys on clearance, but I have found that the same toys kind of sit there all year at the same prices. But in the fall, they add a HUGE number of toys to the clearance page and start slashing prices. It is a good time to start keeping an eye on the Movers & Shakers page and also on the Toy Clearance page. I found a Melissa & Doug dollhouse two years ago for just under $30 (regularly nearly $150)!! There are so many deals it is hard to hold yourself back from buying them all! They normally start in October and run through Christmas and into the weeks after. And then all of a sudden…they are gone! It is a great way to shop for Christmas gifts while it lasts!

I hope these tips have helped you decipher some of the mysteries of the Amazon! It can become addictive once you know where to look for the deals...have fun!!