Step 2: Amazon search should choose the correct department automatically, but if necessary, you can navigate to the top of the left rail and click on the department that fits.
Step 3: Once the page refreshes, scroll to the bottom of the left rail and choose “Amazon.com” as your seller.
Stage 4: You will now only see “Pixel 8A” products sold directly by Amazon.com.
If you still don’t see “Amazon.com” as a seller, try pressing the button “See more” button. A dense but readable alphabetical seller page will appear. If Amazon is one of those sellers, it will appear on the list. You can use CTRL+F (Command+F on Mac) to search for the word “Amazon.com.” Sometimes you’ll see “Amazon Warehouse,” but it only sells used and refurbished items.
Avoid fake discounts
When people see that a product they like is on sale, a small wave of excitement washes over them. Instead of thinking about how much we spend, we start thinking about how much we are saving. Coupons and discounts exist because they create a sense of urgency that causes many people to buy things they normally wouldn’t buy. Some sellers abuse that pricing power. There are many products on Amazon that are infinitely on “sale” and that makes it difficult to know if you are getting a real bargain.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to check. Just copy the URL and paste it into CamelCamelCamel. You will get a page with a graph showing every price movement over the past year. Many products have misleading retail prices like this, to varying degrees. Knowing what the going rate is for a product puts you in charge.
Alternatively, the Keepa Extension for Chrome will add a similar box directly to Amazon.com pages, although it tries to get you to sign up for free and could slow down your browsing.
Photography: Louryn Strampe
Tools like Keepa and CamelCamelCamel can also help you determine the best time to purchase an item. Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K Max, for example, constantly fluctuates between its normal price of $60 and $40, as it is now. And that all-time low includes special sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, meaning you (probably) don’t need to wait to get a good deal. The tools can help you spot similar trends in other products, such as televisions, which tend to be much cheaper as Christmas approaches.
Don’t trust all the reviews
Amazon’s 5-star review system is supposed to simplify product selection, but it’s easy to manipulate. If you’re looking at an expensive product from a company you’ve never heard of, or if there are hundreds or thousands of very positive reviews, do some research. Many sellers try to manipulate reviews to make their products appear more prominently on Amazon.
false point is a great tool to help you spot misleading reviews. Simply enter an Amazon URL and it will give you a report. It’s not a perfect tool, but it will give you a clue as to whether many reviews are fake or suspicious and displays an AI-generated summary to try to help you analyze the information further. We have more tips on how to spot fake Amazon reviews here.