Sneaky ways to save money at Amazon

If you're about to start your online Christmas shopping at Amazon, check out these tips and get the most from your cash.

Christmas is coming, and for many of us that means spending a lot of time shopping on the Amazon.co.uk website for presents. It may have started off selling books, but now it stocks everything from marmite to digital cameras, and with competitive prices and free delivery to boot it’s become a one-stop shop for many of us.

But the convenient option is not always the cheapest. So if you’d been planning to spend some serious cash with our favourite online retailer, check out these tips – and get the most from your Amazon shopping trip.

Shop around!

First up, I know this sounds obvious, but if you want to pay as little as possible you must always shop around.

In my experience, Amazon is nearly always the cheapest, so you could argue it’s not worth the search. But the odd item will slip through the net, and checking doesn’t take long.

I quite fancy Rick Stein’s latest cookbook “Spain” but I'm less keen on its Recommended Retail Price (RRP) of £25. A quick search on Bestbookprice.co.uk revealed that at £12.50, Amazon is the cheapest of the retailers it lists, followed by WHSmith at £13.75.

However, “One Day”, by David Nicholls was cheapest at BookDepository.co.uk at £3.68 with free delivery.

And a quick search on Best-DVD-price.co.uk revealed that Amazon (and HMV) jointly offer the lowest price for the “Tangled” DVD (RRP £17.99) at £7.95. However, the “Senna” DVD (RRP £19.99) was cheapest at £10.95 with free shipping from The Hut, as opposed to £10.99 at Amazon.

Other comparison sites worth using include Kelkoo, Pricerunner, Find-Book and Find-DVD.

Nectar points

If you’ve got a Nectar card, did you realise you can earn Nectar points on your Amazon shopping?

You’ll need to ensure you log in to the Nectar website rather than going direct to Amazon. Simply enter the Amazon site from there and you’ll earn one Nectar point for every £1 spent.

Zeezaw

There’s nothing more annoying than buying something, only to spot it half the price the next week. And Amazon prices can fluctuate a lot.

So if you have your eye on something you don’t need urgently, Zeezaw could save you some money.

Plug in the details of the items you want and the target prices you ideally wish to pay. Then sit back and relax. Zeezaw will automatically send you an email alert when your target price has been reached, allowing you to then log-in and snap it up. Simple!

CamelCamelCamel!

If it’s bargains you’re interested in, CamelCamelCamel may be the site for you.

Like Zeezaw, you can set it to email you when the particular product you’re after hits your target price.

But it can also plot a graph to show you how that product’s price has fluctuated at Amazon over the last few months.

What’s more, it can tell you which products have dropped by the greatest amount, or percentage, for that day or week.

For example, one of today’s best “daily drops” is Disney’s “The Game Plan” DVD, at £5.97. However, the graph shows that on November 3 it apparently cost £10.99, and the cheapest price ever was £5.78 on 30 September. By making use of CamelCamelCamel you can see if the current price really is a bargain, or if it’s worth waiting as it has been far cheaper in the past.

Bargain hunting

If all you’re after is a bargain, check out sites such as tjshome, which reckon they can show you which products in Books, DVDs, Electricals etc have been discounted by 10% to 90%.

In reality they’re a bit hit and miss regarding the accuracy of the discount, but if it’s simply a bargain you’re looking for, you could find yourself in luck.

Lightning Deals!

If you can shop fast, Monday 21 November to Friday 25 November will be the designated “Black Friday deals” week.

So-called lightning deals from most Amazon.co.uk departments will be advertised for varying amounts of time during these five days, from 15 minutes to four hours. If you can spot a deal you fancy, put it in your shopping basket and check out within 15 minutes, it could be yours.

But beware – there will only be a set number of items available for each deal, and if you take longer than 15 minutes to buy your bargain you’ll lose your chance (although you can join a waitlist). The pressure is on!

If you’re wondering where Black Friday comes from, it is the day after Thanksgiving (24 November 2011) in the States. Amazon.com is therefore also offering the 5 days of lightning deals – plus daily offers until then.

Details are only released when the deals go live, but looking at the hints, items to be discounted likely include Mont Blanc pens, Strawberry Shortcake dolls, lamination pouches and baby swimsuits.

Free delivery

Many, but not all Amazon products offer free supersaver delivery (if not, consider carefully if your item is still worth buying once shipping fees have been added).

Alternatively, if you need those items sooner, Amazon Prime offers an unlimited, one-day delivery service for many products for up to four members of one household.

You’ll pay £49 per year for the privilege, but you can currently sign up for a month’s trial for free (just make sure you cancel before the trial is over to avoid being charged).

Marketplace

And finally, if you’ve read that book/watched that DVD, it’s still in top condition but you’ve little storage space, why not make some money and sell it on the Amazon Marketplace? Check out The worst way to sell DVDs for a comprehensive guide to the best and worst ways to make money from your unwanted bits and bobs!

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