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The 15 Best Ways to Save Money on Amazon
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There’s no doubt that Amazon is my favorite online retailer. They don’t charge tax in Michigan (at least yet), they offer quite a few Prime perks other than shipping, and they usually have the best prices around. How can you beat that?
That’s right, you can’t.
Since I shop on Amazon a lot, as I’m sure most of you do as well, I decided to put this post together detailing the multiple ways you can save additional money on top of Amazon’s already amazing pricing.
Warning: There are affiliate links beyond this point! If that is something you want to avoid, turn back now. For all others, enjoy the post!
1. Subscribe and Save
With subscribe and save you can save 5%-15% off hundreds of disposables such as paper towel, cleaners, and pet food. You save 5% off your order when you have 4 items or less that you’re subscribing to and you have delivering in the same month. If you have 5 or more subscribe and save items delivering in the same month, you’ll get 15% off your order. This deal can be stacked with coupons to make it that much better.
2. Search for “AmazonBasics”
Amazon has a product line called “AmazonBasics” which is just what it sounds like: basic products that are super cheap. For example, you can buy cell phone chargers, earbuds, and cases that are AmazonBasics brand. To find those products just search your product name with the phrase “AmazonBasics” (eg. Lightning cable AmazonBasics).
3. Shop Amazon Warehouse
The Amazon Warehouse is a great place to find cheap products that were returned. By returns, I’m not talking about broken, cracked, scratched, and/or damaged items. Most items on Amazon Warehouse are simply opened, use for a short period of time (if at all) then returned. Since Amazon can’t list that item as new anymore, they sell it at a drastically cheaper price on their Warehouse. They offer a great return policy on their Warehouse items, so if the product shows up more used than you would like or broken, you can just return it no questions asked.
4. Use CamelCamelCamel
CamelCamelCamel is a must for Amazon price and rank tracking. With it, you can find out an item’s price history to see if the item is worth buying yet or setting up a price tracker to let you know when it hits a specific price.
5. Use an Amazon Store Card
Amazon has a store card that offers 5% cash back on all purchases. (Since the card can only be used on Amazon, “all purchases” only applies to Amazon purchases.). You don’t get any credit card coverage by using this card (eg. Price protection, extended warranty, ect.), but 5% is a big deal, so that may not matter to you. You can sign up here with a sign-up bonus of a $10 Amazon gift card. As far as I could find, that is the best public offer. You could also try checking out to see if a better offer pops up.
6. Shop Amazon Outlet
Just like most retailers, Amazon has an outlet store of sorts. The only difference between theirs and other retailers is that theirs is online. You can find a lot of great outlet deals here by checking often.
7. Use Amazon Prime
This one is a no brainer. If you shop on Amazon a lot (like a few times a month), then you need Amazon Prime. Alternatively, you could just order $35 or more worth of products shipped by Amazon every time you shop to get free shipping. Prime isn’t only good for shipping, though, so even if you don’t buy a lot of items on Amazon, you may still want to sign-up.
8. Share Your Prime
If you have a $99 Prime membership (non student), you can share your Prime benefits with up to 4 other people. This is a good way to split the price of prime with friends and family.
9. Shop as a New User
Occasionally, Amazon will offer better prices on certain items to “new customers,” so to check if you can get a better price on an item you’re eyeballing, take a look at it in an incognito browser window. That way, if the price is better for new members, just checkout as a guest. Of course, this will negate your Prime shipping benefit, but if the item is significantly cheaper, it could be worth it.
10. Use Coupons
Not everyone knows this, but Amazon offers product coupons just like most other retailers. More often than not, Amazon will have a link to a product specific coupon on said product’s page, however, you can check all available product coupons above.
11. Use Paribus.co to Automatically Save Money
Paribus is relatively new to me, as I’ve only been using it for about two weeks, but it strikes me as an awesome service! Basically they search your inbox for purchases, then monitor those purchases for price adjustments. If they find a lower price, they will submit a price adjustment on your behalf. If that price adjustment is approved, they charge you 25% of the adjustment. In other words, you get 75% of the price difference and they get 25% for doing all the work. It’s an awesome system! You can sign-up here.
Alternatively, you can watch your Amazon purchases for price adjustments. If Amazon lowers the price of your item(s) within 7 days, send them a message and they will most likely refund you the difference.
12. Shop Amazon’s Gold Box
Every day, Amazon releases new items in their Gold Box. Some days offer better deals than other days, so it’s definitely worth a check every once in a while.
13. Use Amazon Student
If you’re in college, you can sign-up for Amazon Student Prime, which offers all the normal Prime features (other than Prime sharing) along with student specific deals such as cheaper text books for $49. This benefit can be renewed every year for 4 years as long as you are still in college. That being said, they only verify your eligibility when you first sign-up, not when you renew.
14. Use Amazon Mom
Amazon Mom is another version of Prime that costs the same as regular Prime ($99). The only difference with the “Mom” version is that you get 20% off select subscribe and save items (mostly baby products) and “Mom” specific coupons (for more baby products). You do not have to be a mom to sign-up for Amazon Mom. In fact, you don’t even have to be female. Amazon Mom is targeted at all parents, grandparents, and caretakers.
15. Use a Portal
What, Amazon has portals? Yeah, I know it’s crazy, but their portals aren’t super generous. Only purchases in the following categories qualify:
- Jewelry
- Watches
- Beauty & Grooming
- Lawn & Garden
- Amazon Local
If you shop those categories ever, make sure you check CashBackMonitor to see which portal will offer you the most cash back.
Bonus: Use Purse.io
I have yet to personally use Purse.io, but I’ve heard good things. With it, you can save anywhere from 8% – 50% off your Amazon purchases. How, you ask? Well, it’s basically a marketplace where you trade Bitcoins for Amazon Products or visa versa. It works particularly well if you have a lot of Bitcoins or Amazon gift cards.
Do you have any Amazon tips that I missed?
