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If you’ve ever felt like you were duped by overpaying for something that was advertised as a “great deal,” you’re in the right place. It’s easy to get caught up in frenzied online shopping holidays like Black Friday or Prime Day, especially when retailers are known for sneaking price hikes before major “sales” or deceiving shoppers with tricks to spend more than you intended to. But there are actionable steps to prepare ourselves for major sales like the Black Friday deals from Walmart, Target, and Amazon.
How to track the price of an item
Figuring out the best time to buy something requires constant watch over ever-fluctuating online prices and some knowledge of how prices have changed in the past. As a shopping and deal writer, that is what I do for a living, and it can be very time-consuming. Luckily, you don’t have to figure it all out yourself: Here are the best websites and extensions I’ve been using for years to check price history and track prices so that you can be sure you’re getting the best deal possible.
The best Amazon price tracker: Camelcamelcamel
Credit: camelcamelcamel.com
CamelCamelCamel is among the best ways to track prices on Amazon products. You can install the browser extension (on Chrome and Firefox) to get access to the site’s features without leaving Amazon, or you can just copy and paste an Amazon link or product name to the website’s search bar. CamelCamelCamel shows you how the price of the item has gone up or down over time, how prices have changed through Amazon directly, and the fluctuations from third-party Amazon sellers who list new and used items.
If you sign up for a free account, you can set up alerts so the site can notify you by email when the price of an item drops below a certain amount, if you can get it used for a given price, or if it’s at an all-time low and now is a good time to buy. You can even see previous historic highs and lows and try to map out the best time to strike.
The best price tracker for most online retailers: Honey
Credit: joinhoney.com
Honey is more than a price-checking tool with automatic coupon and price-tracking alerts. The Honey browser extension compares prices from a whole bunch of retailers, not just Amazon. You can create a Droplist, which notifies you if the prices drop for an item on your list if you’re willing to wait for a deal. Here is what creating a Droplist can do for you:
First, it’ll keep the items you want to keep tabs on organized and easily accessible. Second, it’ll track the prices of those products and alert you when they go on sale at any major retailer. You can see how much those prices cost leading up to the sale to see if they are, in fact, good deals or a trick from retailers to take advantage of you, and even compare them with other major retailers to see who has the best deal. You can see how to set up your droplist here.
The Honey extension also finds promo codes and applies them at checkout automatically when you’re shopping on a retailer’s website. Users can also collect Honey Gold, a percentage back from online purchases made at more than 4,500 stores. Gold can be traded for gift cards to stores like Amazon, Groupon, Macy’s, and more.
Honey is available on Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge and Opera.
The best tool to compare prices: Capital One Shopping
Credit: Capital One Shopping – Other
Capital One Shopping, previously known as Wikibuy, compares prices from other sellers when you shop on Amazon. The browser extension will notify you if a product you are looking at is cheaper somewhere else, and offers a summary of pricing history, estimated delivery time, and total price, including tax and shipping. If you can apply a coupon, it’ll add that too. When the price drops for a product you’ve viewed, Capital One Shopping will notify you. When you shop, you can earn credits for your purchases at some websites, like Walmart and eBay, that Capital One Shopping has partnered with. You can trade that credit for gift cards or put it toward purchases through Capital One Shopping’s site.
The extension is available for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari, and an iOS app allows you to scan barcodes and search products to do price comparisons from your phone.
The best price tracker tool for gamers: CheapShark
Credit: cheapshark.com
While most of the others in the roundup focus on products like electronics, apparel, household goods, and appliances, CheapShark is a great option for those looking to save money on video games. CheapShark combines all of the great places to get discounts on games in one place, one easily searchable directory and database of current prices from sites including Steam, GoG, Green Man Gaming, GameStop, Amazon, and more. Of course, it’s limited to video games, but you can search a game name not just to see how much it’ll cost you to buy, but even if you can buy it at all—and which retailer has it available. If you want, you can even filter by games currently on sale at their selected stores.
When you search for a specific game, CheapShark tells you what the cheapest-ever price was, when it hit that price, and gives you the choice to either go ahead and buy it from your choice of retailer or to sign up for a price notification if it drops again.
Honorable mentions
SlickDeals: Great for finding deals and checking prices
Credit: slickdeals.net
SlickDeals is well known for bringing you up-to-the-minute discounts, coupons, and other deals from around the web, but its web-based price tracker is also great for watching prices on just about any item on Amazon and on a ton of other popular shopping sites, like Newegg, Gamestop, Chewy, Home Depot, and others.
Credit: SlickDeals
The service doesn’t give you a detailed price history like some of the others in the roundup, only showing a “deal history” under the “price intelligence” section for a few popular products. However, it will track the price of your item from when you create an alert going forward and send you an email if the price drops below a threshold that you set. You can also return to the price tracker at any time, log in to your account, and see all of your tracked items on the same screen.
Credit: Keepa
Keepa works very similarly to Camelcamelcamel, but instead of clicking on the extension to see the price history, it’ll be automatically displayed below the image of the product. This helps if clicking on the extension or installing is one click too much for you. Keepa also lets you track specific products and sends you notifications when they go below a specific price that you set. It’s also not just limited to Amazon, it also works on eBay. You can download the extension for Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Edge, and Safari.