Set up Price Drop Alerts on Amazon and eBay to Save Money

Whenever we are looking to buy something online, we turn our eyes to the biggest behemoths in online shopping: Amazon and eBay. And because not all of us can afford to buy whatever we want whenever we see it, we tend to wait for a better deal. But what if you forgot you want to buy that awesome iPad case? Setting up price drop alerts on Amazon and eBay is probably the best way to keep track of your desired goods.

Until not so long ago, I only used wishlists to keep track of the items I wanted to buy and from time to time used even shopping list apps. But that meant I had to manually check the price of my items, which was a real burden. The smart way do it is to set up price drop alerts, so whenever your product hits the price you can afford, you can rush and order it.

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Save money with price drop alerts on Amazon, eBay

As you will notice, if you’ll start looking for price watch trackers online, most of them let you do a very basic job and that is to search products on Amazon or eBay by keywords, Amazon URL or ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) and look for their prices at that moment. But what you should look for are price alert services that send you an email notification, RSS feed or even Tweet, so that you can be sure you won’t forget.

These are the price alert services we will be focusing on, but will also provide a list with basic price watch trackers, in case you need to quickly check the price of something you want to buy. Also, because they are really helpful and “silent”, we will feature a few browser extensions to help you make sure you don’t miss the right price for your next item you are going to buy.

Amazon Price Drop Alert Tools

CamelCamelCamel

Yes, I know, your first reaction will be – what’s wrong with that name? But, despite having a horrible (or smart and easy to remember) name, CamelCamelCamel (let’s just call it CCC) is one of the best tools there are for following item prices on Amazon. To enable a product price alert on CCC, you can choose to directly insert the URL of the product or you can search it for yourself.

When you have set up the price you are looking for, all you have to do is wait for a notification from CCC. They will send you an email or a direct or public tweet, if you have a Twitter account. And these are not all the features that CCC comes with. The Amazon price alert service also has a price-history charts that dates as far as a year behind. That will help you out to see if a price decrease already happened or not for the product you’re looking for.

For those of you that have long Amazon Wish Lists, you should know that you can import that using CCC’s tools. Also, you have at your disposal a “Camelizer” Firefox add-on (link at the end), Chrome extension and bookmarklet.

Chintzee

Chintzee is an Amazon price drop alert service that I like the most especially thanks to its truly appealing and masterfully done design. Just like CCC, Chintzee comes with an Amazon price history chart and a Chrome extension. You can browse directly on Chintzee’s websites for products and also see some of the biggest price drops for the day, as well as most popular products.

The price drop alert function on Chintzee doesn’t work like CCC, meaning that it doesn’t let you set your own price, but it will rather notify you when the price will drop, no matter by how much. There is also the email notification options, no tweets or RSS feeds being available.

ZingSale

ZingSale is an Amazon price tracker that is both functional and with good looks. It doesn’t tell you only when a certain product price has went down on Amazon but it can also inform you when it has went on sale. Say you are looking for the next PlayStation generation console, by using ZingSale, you will be notified when it goes on sale.

You will have your own ZingSale Alert List where you will add all the products you are interested and when the prices will drop, you’ll be informed through an email about the price decrease. There is also a price chart history but it will date back only as far as the past two months.

PriceDaemon

The simplicity and ease of use is strong in this one – PriceDaemon is probably the most easy to use and reliable Amazon price tracker you’ll find at the moment. You can search for your products and then fix a certain price that you’re looking for; when that product will have its price decreased and will reach your mentioned amount, you will be notified with an email about the price drop. Simple, fast and useful.

If you think you need more tools to find the right price you are looking for, then you might want to try these three other Amazon price drop alert services, as well.

Waitable
AlertPedia
OnlinePriceAlert

eBay Price Drop Alert Tools

eBay has an advantage over Amazon when it comes to price drop alerts because it has its own system that lets you set mobile or instant messaging alerts. By using the free mobile eBay application, you can set alerts on your smartphone. You can also use AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Windows Live,or Yahoo! Messenger to receive a message when you’ve been outbid or when a listing ends.

But eBay’s own system comes with a few drawbacks. First of all, it’s not a price alert per se, but rather a set of tools to help you be in touch with the items you are following. The services outline below let you watch for Buy It Now items, ending soon auctions and also set your own price ranges and get email notifications, as well.

AuctionSensor

AuctionSensor might not have the best design you will see these days in the evolving online environment, but it makes up for that with functionality. This eBay price alert service comes with the following features:

Automated eBay search at every 5 minutes so you get new deals on the go
Discover newly listed Buy It Now items
Find ending soon auctions so you could get your chance to buy the item
Price range includes the shipping cost
Sound alert when the deal you are looking for is found
Offline email notification
Chrome app

The single drawback that I encountered while using AuctionSensor was the fact that the eBay deals were not that accurate sometimes. So, make sure to write a detailed product name when you search.

ItemAlarm

ItemAlarm is an eBay price drop alert service that is still in Beta but already looks promising. ItemALARM automates your eBay searches and find the items you want and the price you are looking for on eBay. A drawback of the service is that it might send you to many email alerts if you don’t set the frequency of the notifications you get. I have set up mine to 3 days and suggest you to do the same if you don’t want your email to be cluttered with price alert emails.

StuffAlert

Just like ItemAlarm and AuctionSensor, you will have to register on the website to be able to use its services. StuffAlert lets you quickly find the products and the right prices you are looking for on eBay so you could bid for products or buy them. As eBay is an auction-based website, it’s not that easy as on Amazon to get the right price you’re looking for, but StuffAlert might prove to be helpful.

Also, have a look at two other eBay price drop alert services from below, in case you were not satisfied with the service featured above.

eBuyerrsEdge
JoyBidder

Shopping Price drop alert browser extensions

If you don’t want to use a dedicated website to follow product price alerts, then these browser extensions will be of great use, as you won’t even notice they are present, silently working in the background and bringing you the deals you want.

PriceDrop for Amazon, BestBuy: Firefox, Chrome
BINSniper for eBay: Firefox
The Camelizer for Amazon: Firefox
Keepa Price Tracker for Amazon: Firefox, Chrome
Ookong Amazon price history: Chrome

Note: In India, Flipkart buyers can use this service from Alertpedia to track the price drops.

Price drop alert mobile apps

We take our smartphones and tablets everywhere we go and by using some dedicated price drop alert apps, we can be sure we will not miss that sweet deal or price we’re looking for. There aren’t too many dedicated apps that will keep track of prices only on Amazon or eBay, so the apps from below will track prices from other online stores, such as NewEgg, Walmart, Target and others.