gHacks technology news » amazon tips http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:29:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 How To Go Discount Hunting On Amazon http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/13/how-to-go-discount-hunting-on-amazon/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/13/how-to-go-discount-hunting-on-amazon/#comments Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:51:08 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=10529 Did you know that it is possible to go discount hunting on the various Amazon websites? It actually is pretty easy to search for discounts at the Amazon website. All that is needed for that is a basic url that needs to be altered to reflect the category and the discount.

Depending on the item at hand you can save thousands of Dollars by searching for discount items on the Amazon website.

Before we start exploring the possibilities take a look at some of the possible discounts that you can currently find at Amazon.com.

amazon discounts

Those are some heavy price reductions. A $10,000 discount on a watch, almost $1,500 on a Camera and $24,000 on an engagement ring.

Here is the basic structure of the url that can be used to search Amazon for discounts only:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/?node=502394&pct-off=75-99

There are three parts in that url that need to be modified.

1. amazon.com: change amazon.com to another url if you would like to shop in that Amazon store instead, e.g. amazon.co.uk

2. node=502394: the node specifies the category that the search is conducted in.

3. off=75-99: This specifies the discount. You can enter any figure between 00 and 99. This example would search for discounts between 75% and 99% of the original price.

Audio & Television

Camera & Photo

Computers & Add-Ons

Electronics

Furniture

Grocery

Home Appliances

Jewelry

Software

Toys

Video Games

Watches

You can use the basic url outlined above to search for discounts in any category that you want. The node is always displayed when you navigate on the Amazon website. Simply copy and paste the node of the category that you would like to search into the basic url.

Tags: , , , , ,

Related posts

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/13/how-to-go-discount-hunting-on-amazon/feed/ 13 How To Coordinate Multiple Amazon Purchases http://www.ghacks.net/2009/01/22/how-to-coordinate-multiple-amazon-purchases/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/01/22/how-to-coordinate-multiple-amazon-purchases/#comments Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:16:06 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=10055 If you make purchases at an Amazon store you have the option to let Amazon ship the items as soon as they are available or grouped together to save postage and handling fees. Shipping and handling does not need to be a problem as Amazon will send some items free of charge but it could be a issue. There is another problem that arises if you combine purchases of items that are deliverable and those that are not. This usually happens if you add preorder items to the purchase. Amazon will bundle these items together if you select to group items in as few shipments as possible which in turn means that you will have to wait for all items until the preordered item arrives.

This still might not be a problem if you do not need the items that can be shipped earlier right away but it could be problematic if the preordered or unavailable item is expected to be available in months. There is one simple rule that helps in that case: Never mix available and unavailable (preorder or otherwise) items in the Amazon store. This might lead to slightly higher shipping and handling costs but it will ensure that the available items will arrive in the usual shipping schedule.

One way to handle this is to add all available items to the cart and make the purchase before doing the same for those items that are not deliverable. If you already made the purchase you can still split items in the options of the Amazon order summary for that order. This will usually split the available items from the unavailable ones.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Related posts

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/01/22/how-to-coordinate-multiple-amazon-purchases/feed/ 0 Never again run out of household items http://www.ghacks.net/2007/11/28/never-again-run-out-of-household-items/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/11/28/never-again-run-out-of-household-items/#comments Wed, 28 Nov 2007 08:52:28 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/11/28/never-again-run-out-of-household-items/ Amazon Subscribe and Save was mentioned in the Cybernet News RSS feed and it sounded that interesting that I decided to take a look at it myself and write a small article about it. The service offers a way to subscribe to household items and select a delivery schedule for those items. Shipping is free of charge and buyers do get a 15% discount on purchased items.

Even better that you can cancel the service at anytime. It is a bit sad that this service is currently only available on Amazon.com but it could happen that the localized Amazon portals in other countries will follow the lead if the service turns out to be a success.

What I like is that you do get a 15% discount and that the items are shipped freely to your location. This could be especially useful for household items that you use on a daily basis. Amazon offers five main categories that hold items, those are: Baby & Child Care, Food & Snacks, Health & Wellness, Household Supplies and Personal Care & Beauty.

subscribe and save

The benefit of using a service like this is that you do not have to think of buying an item when you are running out of supplies. I’m not saying that you will never again run into a situation where you are running out of toilet paper or coffee because you still have to select a schedule for the delivery.

The danger that I see is that it could happen that you get either to many items delivered or to few. It probably will take some time until you set the right schedule for the household items. Most items seem to come in packages of two or more which explains the pricing. It did look a bit high on first glance but considering that you do sometimes get 2,3 or even 4 items for that price it sounds reasonable again.

Tags: , ,

Related posts

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/11/28/never-again-run-out-of-household-items/feed/ 2 Amazon Price Watcher http://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/11/amazon-price-watcher/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/11/amazon-price-watcher/#comments Sun, 11 Mar 2007 12:29:35 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/11/amazon-price-watcher/ Amazon offers a huge product catalogue on their different (country) websites which has one major problem and that is clarity. Navigating through the content can be really painful, especially if you only want to check the current price of several items that you would like to buy. One way to handle this would be to store all products as bookmarks and check them manually every day to see if the price was reduced. This is however not very practicable.

The free Amazon Price Watcher aids you in this task. It allows you to search many Amazon stores – including those for the United States, Great Britain, Germany and Canada) – using the Amazon Price Watcher interface. Just search for products in selected categories and save interesting results in a library. The library offers fast access to information such as price and availability including a price chart which displays the overall price trend.

Product images and additional information will be displayed if available. This is great for an overview. The item will be displayed with a green background if your target price is higher than the actual price of the item at Amazon indicating that it would be a good time to purchase it right away.

I’m using the amazon Price Watcher for some time now and can only recommend it to everyone who makes occasional purchases at amazon.

Tags: ,

Related posts

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/11/amazon-price-watcher/feed/ 2