15 Unspoken Hacks to Save Really Big at Amazon.com

Without a doubt, Amazon has carved a niche as the more formidable online retailer giant in the United States! The internet prowess and the advancement in technology have veritably rendered it a child's play to purchase a plethora of items without even stepping out the door, and have them shipped straight to your doorstep!

With the fad of online shopping riding the high waves, Amazon saves plenty of hassle and time in running errands, is highly convenient, and offers myriad ways to purchase items at affordable costs by alleviating the brick and mortar overheads of extravagant physical stores.

If you are a frequent Amazon shopper, you must be looking for ways to maximize your savings when shopping at Amazon. Here are some incredulous tricks that can be leveraged to vamp up your savings even more while enjoying the convenience and versatility of shopping with Amazon.

1. Amazon Warehouse Deals

Many people are oblivious to the little known section of Amazon which encompasses deals on boxes broken or returned during shipment. After analyzing their entire inventory and stock, they stow away the ones they cannot sell as new into the Amazon Warehouse Deals section.

2. Snag Discounted Amazon Gift Cards

Take your pick; there are a plethora of sites online that sell discounted gift cards.  For instance, Gift Card Granny incorporates more than 1,000 Amazon gift cards for sale, offering discounts that run the gamut from 0.5% to 40%. You can buy a few in advance, and cartel them with myriad other discounts to pack yourself a super deal.

3. Add Items to Your Shopping Cart and Don’t Check Out

You could call this tactic somewhat akin to “forcing a promotion”. Why? This hack compels Amazon to offer promotions and discounts for the things you seemed to show an interest in. All you have to do is amble around Amazon and peruse sections like you would normally. When you have stashed all your items into your cart, don’t checkout; just leave them there!

While you have to be signed into your Amazon account if you want this trick to work, you don’t have to actually buy the items. Simply let your carts stay full and do not return for a few days. More often than not, you’ll receive Emails from Amazon, asking you to finish your checkout, including enticing discount codes and promotions for items in you cart to coerce you in to action. Strike while the iron is hot!

4. Trade Your Used Stuff for Amazon Gift Cards

Got any old stuff that you want off your hands? Amazon will take care of that! Instead of dispensing off with your unused possessions, trade them on Amazon to glean gift cards!! The best part is that it doesn’t even matter where the product was originally bought from.

With free shipping, there’s no better way to “reuse” your stuff. Simply search for items that you want to trade in. Print out the pre-paid shipping label received, and ship to Amazon. Within 10 days of the arrival of your trade-in, you’ll get Amazon gift credit in your account.

5. Amazon Outlet

In addition to the incredulous Warehouse deals of Amazon, there is an equally fascinating outlet section as well. Remember to visit it every day to catch new items on discount, some up to 60% off. Amazon’s outlet accommodates last year models, closeouts, overstocks, and markdowns. 

Whenever an item gets off the inventory, it finds its way into the outlet section.  Nevertheless, these items are still new and make great purchases. You can even narrow down your search by picking the amount of savings associated with each category.

6. Get an Amazon Student account

Are you a college student? If so, Amazon has great discounts for you. Amazon allows students to sign up for a six month free trial of Amazon student, and garner access to unlimited photo storage, free two day shipping, and a host of other benefits. When your trial period runs out, you get upgraded to an Amazon Prime membership. And that too for half the cost!

7. Subscribe and Save

The “subscribe and save” action of Amazon applies to items needed on a regular basis. Peruse through Amazon’s Subscribe and save section to get a glimpse of what they have to offer. This program is intended to ship out the run-of-the-mill items that you need, on discounted prices. After you determine what you want, decide when you want it by each month.

Amazon cuts you a slack of 15% more if 5 or more subscriptions are scheduled for delivery on your monthly delivery day. The items come with free shipping, and you can always cancel subscription for an item when you no longer need it.

8. Consider Amazon Prime

If you are a frequent shopper at Amazon, you should consider Amazon prime, the mighty $99 a year membership. This membership offers two-day free shipping, and lends you easy access to freebies, such as the lending library, and unrestricted streaming of music, TV shows, and movies. This translates into great value for money, especially if you often find yourself opting for the fastest delivery options, or it costs you a fortune to attain those services from brick-and-mortar stores.

9. Share Amazon Prime

If you find the cost of Amazon prime at the higher end of the spectrum, why not split the cost by sharing your account with others. Up to four “household members” can be added to one account. Since there is no explicit definition of a "household" member, it's completely left up to your discretion.

10. Free Super Saver Shipping

If you don’t have Amazon prime and are in no rush, procrastinate checking out until your shopping cart has about $25 worth of goods piled up. This helps you qualify for the free supersaver shipping, so that you get your items delivered within 5-8 business days.

11. h2>Look through the Bargain Bins

Rummage through the “Today’s Deals” section at the top of the Amazon page, and scour for all the items you need in the bargain bins. The today’s Deals landing page is replete with super bargains in every category. The Lightening deals section within the page is loaded with time sensitive deals on products from some specific category, such as electronics or automotive. These deals last for a few hours or until the stock depletes. The deal of the day offers massive discounts on a single item that change daily.

12. A price tracking browser plug-in comes in Handy

If you have your eyes set at some item on Amazon, and you are keeping your fingers crossed that the price will plummet later, consider installing CamelCamelCamel plugin for Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. The Program displays a graph depicting the price history of that item on Amazon, if it is available. Be sure to sign up for email alerts if the price comes down below a level.

13. Get deals on Baby and Kids Products with Amazon Family

Amazon isn’t forgetting your little tots and sweetlings still in diapers. Amazon Prime members can avail the Amazon Family program (or the Amazon Mom) free of cost, which offers delightful deals on baby essentials, such as wipes, diapers, and other paraphernalia, and baby registry items. Once you get the taste for 20% off your diaper orders, you’ll never feel prudent about setting foot inside big box stores.

14. Discover Super discounts on Amazon’s Coupons page

Amazon has amazing discount coupons on its everyday items, such as supplements, household items, groceries, and cleaning supplies. You just have to click the “Clip Coupon” button before adding the item to your cart. Furthermore, if you want to get your hands on awesome Amazon Promo codes, check out websites, such as RetailMeNot.com and CouponBend.com.

15. The Two Browser Trick

In order to maximize your savings on Amazon, it works wonders to run your own little price comparison. The trick is to log into your Amazon account, peruse around until you find the items you were looking for, but put off adding them to your cart. Open up a new browser next and clear your cookies and cache to ensure that you are starting fresh.

Open Amazon in this new browser and navigate to the same Amazon pages you were interested in earlier. Check the prices shown and compare to the prices displayed when you logged in from your account. If you notice a marked difference, it is because Amazon often shows low prices to non-Amazon customers to lure them in.