You could be only moments away from being taken advantage of by Amazon—Not to worry! We all seem to shop at Amazon as though it’s our second home, and for good reason. There’s nothing worse than seeing a product go from $28 one day to mysteriously jumping back up to $34 the next day or finding out that an item you bought last month is now on sale for 50% off!
Super annoying? For sure! Completely avoidable? Yep! If you just know where to look!
What You Don’t Know (But Should)
There exists a website by the super sarcastic name of CamelCamelCamel.
Yes, you read that correctly—three camels!
I don’t particularly know why they picked that name, but it works.
The purpose of CamelCamelCamel is to give you the entire price history of nearly every product that Amazon sells, including every price change and spike, as well as every random sale. If Amazon so much as sneezes, CamelCamelCamel notices it.
Let’s assume you’re interested in purchasing something such as a Garmin GPS running watch from the current Amazon price of $149.99.
Instead of just believing that price number on the screen, you grab the URL of the running watch off Amazon and immediately head over to the CamelCamelCamel website, use the search bar to paste it in, and voila—you now can see the price history for that specific Garmin GPS running watch as though you were a time traveler with receipts!
When I initially bought my first Omega watch back in the spring of 2015, it cost approximately $330. Unfortunately, however, the price dropped significantly during several sales. I next saw it listed at about $250 and then started seeing it for about $150–$170, with it dropping occasionally down to about $120.
By knowing this information, how I’d shop would totally change; I have no idea whether or not I should wait until next Tuesday to buy it or not.
Another thing you can do is make price alerts if you have patience or really enjoy saving money.
For example, suppose you only want that watch if it drops to $130. You enter in your email address, enter in $130 in the “price” field, enter in your wish price of $130, and press the “Track” button. You can then just go about living your life until CamelCamelCamel sends you an email when the price reaches your target price of $130.
In essence, this is just like having your own personal assistant that only contacts you when the price is agreeable.
That said, here’s why this matters:
Amazon is notorious for pricing behavior that is all over the place; they bounce around like a toddler who’s just eaten candy!
For example, if I look today, a product that costs $59 today could potentially be $42 tomorrow and $68 by dinner time tomorrow.
If you’re not someone who loves to check an item 27 times per day, having an alert is a great way to know if an item you are interested in is on sale.
A good reason to use this tool is if you are about to make a large purchase—such as electronic devices, large machinery, and any other type of item that you may regret purchasing two hours later.
The person who created this video also used this service to set price alerts when running their video equipment rental business.
The rental business had a lot of cameras, mics for recording sound, and storage case system units; although none of these items are affordable, you can get them at discounted rates if you wait until the right time.
CamelCamelCamel has several important pieces of information:
- The highest price it has ever been
- The lowest price it has ever been
- The price it is currently
- The prices that are changing from third-party vendors
- The price history of that product (including when the purchase is made).
Using CamelCamelCamel will provide you with an excellent picture of when to purchase the items you wish to purchase.
Now that you know how these three camels work, you can make shopping on Amazon less of a lottery.
Whether you are purchasing a new electronic device, restocking items, or searching for that special ‘winner’ item, you will know you are not overpaying by checking the camels.
So, the next time you fill your basket and are prepared to hit the “Buy Now” button, just remember to look at the camels first.
