Last updated on July 26th, 2018 at 12:02 pm
In part one of my series of posts ‘How to save money on Amazon.com’ – I’ll show you how Amazon might not always show you the best deals first. If you can wait an extra day or two, you can sometimes get the identical product, in exactly the same condition, shipped two days (Prime benefit) – for a little less. If Amazon collects taxes in your area you can often save the taxes as well!
First of – do you have an Amazon Prime membership? This $99 per year membership gets you a whole raft of membership benefits – the free 2-day shipping is just one of the benefits. For more information on Amazon prime, visit this link. If you buy a prime membership and spend $5 through this referral link – I will earn $5 – ie, if you refer 20 people, your prime membership is free
If you do NOT have Amazon Prime – did you know there is a 3-month Amazon Prime membership option? It’s $32.97 for 3 months. This membership is perfect for the Christmas Season and saves you a whopping $0.09 over the $99/year option… it’s worth considering if you don’t have prime already.
Even with an Amazon Prime membership, when you search for a product, Amazon might not show you the lowest price option. Sometimes these options are hidden because they are not available immediately. For example – an Amazon marketplace seller might have selected that their product ships from say, Texas. If that item is out of stock in Texas, you won’t see it, even if it will be back in stock tomorrow – or even later today!
So – how do you find these items? That’s the trick – first off – always make sure you are logged into your Amazon.com account when you search for a product. That’s REALLY important.
Next – you need to look for the hidden text “Note: Available at a lower price from other sellers, potentially without free Prime shipping.”
The text ‘other sellers’ will be a link. That is your key – here is a search I did for ‘Star wars a new hope’
Look for the text –
“Note: Available at a lower price from other sellers, potentially without free Prime shipping.”
Now – click that text ‘other sellers’ – but before you go any further – Click the boxes on the left – ‘Prime’ and ‘New’ – because I’m only interested in a brand new item, and I want it to ship using my prime 2-day shipping:
Click ‘Prime’ and then ‘New’ – you want to see brand new, prime eligible items!
So what do we find when we look for ‘other sellers’ and ‘Prime’ plus ‘New’ items?
We find two things…
- There is a marketplace reseller – with 99.9% good feedback – who has the item at a few cents lower
- That reseller doesn’t charge sales tax in my jurisdiction (most do not)
What does that mean?
If I can wait an extra day – and I normally can – I will save $1.06, or 2.86% on this one product. While that might not seem like a lot, that dollar saved took me a whole 30 seconds to save – my savings per hour are $1.06 x 60 or $63.60 per hour. That’s worth saving!