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Money Saving Tool: My Review of CamelCamelCamel

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Is that Amazon item a good deal? What about something you’ve had your eye on at Newegg? With the CamelCamelCamel site you can find out if it’s really a good deal or not. There you can see the price history of the item on Amazon. Prices on Amazon vary over time, no doubt thanks to an algorithm somewhere. Can you ever outsmart those dang algorithms?  Sometimes you can.

Check out the site CamelCamelCamel for a great money-saving hack for Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, Zzounds, and BackCountry. First of all, the service is free.  Second, it’s easy to use.  Third, it can save you time as well as money.

I’ve been using CamelCamelCamel for over a year and find it easy to use. I’m pretty sure that I’ve saved a nice chunk of change on gifts.  Our family makes wish lists on Amazon and I can buy at the best price point without spending all my nights on Amazon.

I just go to CamelCamelCamel and enter the url of the item at Amazon I’m considering buying. A chart will come up for up to a year back, showing the highest price and the lowest price and the dates they were recorded.  You’ll be able to set your price target at which you are willing to buy. You don’t commit to anything, they just notify you when the price target is met.  Then it’s up to you to decide if you want to buy it or not at Amazon.  I’ve noticed that frequently the lowest price is offered for one day only, so grab the deal when you get the email to be sure to get it at that price. It’s a flukey algorithm.

I like that they show the prices for the 3rd-party sellers at Amazon also as well as some items that are for sale as used. For all three categories they offer a graph showing price fluctuations, as well as what most people want the price to drop to before they buy. They tell you if the current price is the highest they’ve seen or if it’s lower than the average. You request to be notified if the price drops below a level you specify. They will let you know by email or on Twitter–your choice.  Just remember to figure in the cost of shipping for all items when you set your target price.  Unfortunately they don’t include that in the price targets.

CamelCamelCamel has sister sites that cover BackCountry, BestBuy, Newegg,  and Zzounds. To see those, just click on their icons at the top of the CamelCamelCamel home page. 
On their home page is a list of several best price drops currently available.  You can use these whether you signed up for anything or not. In that way it’s a kind of deal-a-day site. You can also install the Camelizer if you like. Then anytime you are shopping Amazon, a price history chart will pop up for an item you are considering.  As far as I know they have no affiliation with Amazon. (Neither do I.)

 

Click here to link to CamelCamelCamel.com.   Of course it won’t help you if you need to buy right away. Also they don’t track Kindle prices for some reason.

Comments

  2. Are there any sites that can track Amazon prices for used items? I’m watching a $1000 dollar item that you can get for $800 refurbished and around $880 used from amazon, but I my target is $700.

  3. Thanks Z, I will! I appreciate you sharing this. We are all in this together & can help each other keep our budgets under control.

  5. That’s a good site too. Thanks for sharing with us! I hear you about the legos. They can get pretty expensive. Happy bargain hunting!

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