12 SHOPPING SECRETS Amazon Doesn’t Want You to Know!

We have 12 insider shopping secrets for amazon.co.uk plus how to score insane clearance deals on their website.

If you are not an Amazon Prime member, we are going to share many deals, discounts, and ways to actually use the amazon.co.uk website to your advantage.

Let’s begin first with a reminder that there are a lot of links that we’re going to share tied to these deals.

We do use Amazon Associate affiliate links, which means we benefit monetarily at no extra cost to you if you are kind enough to use them.

We’re not speaking on behalf of Amazon, nor are they endorsing anything that we are going to share with you. In fact, we think this is information Amazon might prefer we don’t share with you.

A reminder too, if you want to become a Prime member, there is a free 30-day trial to help you out with that. And that link is HERE.

Plus, in this article, we’re going to give you tons of coupons that will save you what could be thousands of pounds over the course of a year.

These deals and coupons are all part of this Amazon shopping secrets article that we’re going to share with you right now, starting at…

Insider Saving Secret #1

There is a page on Amazon, where many of the best deals happen to be hidden, and a lot of you might not know this page actually exists.

There’s a special section of Amazon.co.uk called Bargain Finds.

And these prices include standard shipping, and of course, the rates may differ by destination.

Chances are you haven’t seen the page, and many of these products range from £2 to about £20.

There are some anomalies and some good products.

This AGPTEC watch for women is priced at £37.74.

And it’s literally impossible to find a listing for this in stock on Amazon’s main page if you do a search. At least at the time that we’re writing this, there are deals for all sorts of people.

Throughout this article, we’re going to show you how to save money on all types of things, how to find hidden coupons, and of course, some really good deals but just as an example on another below £10 deal, on the Bargain Finds page, this beautiful Makeup Brush Set £8.92.

When we go to the main section of Amazon, we’re seeing this for 36% higher, so just throwing that out there as something that you might need to know as a great way to save money, even a decently rated £17.99 pair of Song Foldable Headphones.

If you find yourselves traveling or if you don’t have a Bluetooth connection or you’re doing a lot of Skype or zoom and you just want to hard wire into the computer. This £17.99 deal with free shipping would be another example as our savings secret number one.

Insider Saving Secret #2

The saving secret number two is tied to the Trade In Page.

As some of you may know, you can actually trade in pre-existing devices, and Amazon will handle the return shipping to them for free. And then you’ll get that credit toward an additional device. But what you might not know is they actually run promotions on a special version of the trading page.

So, for example, if you trade in a select mobile phone, you’ll get a bonus on an Amazon gift card.

If you trade in an old e-reader, you get 20% off a new Kindle e-reader, and that’s on top getting cash back for the e-reader you’re already trading in.

If you have an old fire tablet, you could trade that for fire TV devices. And if you have an old fire TV stick, you can trade that in and again make huge savings.

You can also get an Amazon gift card plus 25% off a new Echo device. And just to show you how the trade-in process works, it’s actually seamless. You first select what it is you want to trade in. In our example, we have a first-generation, used Blink indoor home security system. You answer a few questions about it and get 50 quid back for trading in for the new system. You could get an additional discount off of the second generation if you choose to buy it for that respective product line.

So you might be thinking, Well, it’s 50 quid; I paid more at the time. Hey, it’s more money back in your pocket where it belongs. Who’s complaining!

Insider Savings Secret #3

Bookmark the sales section of the Amazon Warehouse page. I’m sure many of you guys know that there are plenty of gold-box deals that have a wide range of discounts.

Some of them are good, and some of them are not fully worth your while at all times. And some of the products that end up in the gold box and today’s deal section or listings that are dead.

It’s not a great way to sort deals, but you’ll likely note the Amazon warehouse section is better organised and also has deals that are in stock.

So for the warehouse products, not all of these are used. Some of these are products that have just been repackaged. Sometimes if something ships to you at your home from point A to point B and the box is deemed to be damaged, which might mean scuffed up, there might be a dent in the package.

Amazon then receives that on the backend, repackages it, and sends it back out as a renewal warehouse product. And that’s what we’re looking at for some of these deals.

So if we were to look right now, there’s a select number of deals. But something like Huggies Pure Baby Wipes (18 packs, 1008 wipes) right now is selling for £12.08 versus what could be £17.25 or more if you were to purchase this product as brand new, and again, all of these prices that we’re showing you will differ depending on when you’re reading this and what’s on sale at Amazon at that particular time.

And one of the reasons you may want to bookmark that warehouse deal section is that we are going to give you a saving secret edition right here as a bit of a bonus in Insider Saving Secret #4 below.

Insider Saving Secret #4

Once you’re in the warehouse section, pay attention to the Woot deals. You guys remember that Woot used to be a daily deal website, and then Amazon purchased it. And now there are all sorts of daily deals that run on the website (Amazon.com only).

A lot of these are refurbished and used products, but they’re worth a look. There are some great savings on specific products if you were to login right now. You’re going to find different products that are brand new and worth your while.

For example, this HoMedics UV-Clean Portable Sanitiser Bag is less than 24 quid. Some of the deals are good, some aren’t. Of course, this would be a good deal to keep in mind.

As part of Amazon’s brand new renewal program, the deals in this section are primarily tied to electronics, and desktops are the most aggressive of anything that I’ve ever seen.

Now we are not completely in favour of just buying a renewed or refurbished product from anyone.

In fact, for a lot of those daily deal websites you see, there’s no accountability if something goes wrong with the product.

The reason we like Apple refurbished products when you buy directly from Apple and renewed products that you buy directly from Amazon is that there’s an additional guarantee.

Look right now at this amazing deal. This HP desktop computer with an All-in-One 22-dd0004na, Windows 11 Home, AMD Ryzen 3, 4GB RAM, 128GB, which looks absolutely insane. And a brand new 4GB solid state drive for £408.32 that is one of the best desktop deals.

Why am I showing you the section? Well, all of the products from the Amazon renewed section and a reminder that a product that is backed by an additional 90 day Amazon renewed guarantee.

The product has been professionally tested, it’s inspected and it’s tested by Amazon qualified suppliers to ensure that it looks like new and performs well.

On certain products, it’s actually better to buy it renewed because your typical return window for an Amazon purchase is 30 days.

When you buy an Amazon renewed product, even if it’s just been repackaged, you’re getting it 90 days if anything goes wrong with it. And that’s actually better and working to your advantage as a consumer, and it could score you a deal on something like a refurbished iPhone 8. You’re saving £80 right now for something that’s fully unlocked that you could take advantage of and score that additional 90-day renewed guarantee.

Now we realise many products have manufacturer warranties, but with everything going on,. It’s not that easy to call up the manufacturer and get the service and everything scheduled. Sometimes just going back to the place where you purchased the product, like Amazon, is a great way to go.

So these renewed products are really something to consider.

(Also see Insider Savings Secret #12).

Insider Saving Secret #5

Ok, this secret won’t save you money, but it may save you a lot of time and potentially a lot of mess. If you order any liquids or non-liquid items, the items will be shipped in separate boxes. Many delays are the result of liquids that leak or spill, and the packages have to be replaced and re-ordered.

Insider Saving Secret #6

You absolutely do not need to be an Amazon Prime member if your main reason for using that Prime membership is free shipping.

Lots of people don’t know this, but the average shipping time for a non-Prime product is between five and eight days.

If you spend over £25, most products on Amazon will ship completely for free. And if you are shopping for something that’s available from a third party and fulfilled by that third party, you often just get free shipping, so the Prime membership may not be worth your while.

And with that being said, if you’re not using Prime Video and some of the other benefits, which we’ll discuss later, getting anything into your shopping cart and bundling together so it’s over $25 will get you shipping within that five- to eight-day window. And at least at the time that we’re writing this article, there are widespread delays based on what’s going on in the world, and with Amazon’s shipping times, Prime one- to two-day free shipping doesn’t really hold true, at least right now. Again, everything’s different; we’re not speaking on behalf of Amazon shipping times, just based on our own personal experiences.

Insider Saving Secret #7

We’re sure you guys might have noticed that you can’t use manufacturer coupons at Amazon; you can’t just submit them to customer service and have them apply to an order. But did you know there are coupons galore waiting for you in this not-so-obvious section of Amazon.co.uk?

We are not going to call this a secret section, but we are going to say the vast majority of people do not know these links exist. And they don’t know that you can actually score all sorts of coupons that you can then apply to future purchases.

We realise £1 off here or there might not get you overly excited, but before you start shopping, visit Amazon Vouchers which collects savings across Amazon with a wide selection of vouchers from top brands. Then look for the coupon links and apply before checkout to qualify for savings.

You’re not going to believe some of the savings you’ve missed out on if you were not aware of Amazon Vouchers before or haven’t seen the links before paying.

You can subscribe to our email newsletter, join the community forum, save the coupons, or whatever; just make sure you’re using a coupon when you shop.

Insider Saving Secret #8

Know the source of your products to get the best deal.

We want to give you an example. Not everything you see on Amazon is, of course, at its lowest price. And if you look very carefully when you are shopping for a product, it usually comes from another brand. And these brands sometimes have their own websites, where you can save even more money if you go directly to their websites.

Why? Well, it’s not that Amazon’s out to squeeze you. But they do have credit card processing fees and different fees that are passed along to the merchant, and in that case, many merchants will actually jack up their prices on Amazon, even if they’re on sale, just to cover their operating costs. Sometimes it pays to shop local instead of online!

Insider Savings Secret #9

Know your rights. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you are paying for a promise that you’re going to get most products within a specific time window. And if you’re not getting your products within two to three days or even five days, you’re still promised some type of shipping time. Many of the products these days that we’ve been ordering are also getting lost. Other times we are waiting three weeks for something that was a Prime product and was supposed to arrive in three to five days.

If this is happening to you, contact Amazon Customer Service and ask for a credit for that month. Your Prime membership costs you £8.99 a month. You shouldn’t be paying for something you’re not getting back as a service. So ask for credit.

Those are your rights. We’ve found Amazon customer service is very receptive to providing those breaks to people. Just make sure you stand up for your rights.

Insider Saving Secret #10

There are discounts available on the Prime membership program. If you are a university student, you can save a lot on Prime Student. Start a 6-month FREE trial and then enjoy Prime at half the price. And as always, you can cancel at any time.

Not a student? What you might not know is that there are actually other plans available too. If you are not a student, it’s £8.99 per month at the time we’re writing this, which gives you unlimited premium delivery, Prime video ad-free music streaming, unlimited photo storage, unlimited reading, Prime gaming and Prime video, and early access to Lightening Deals (Prime Exclusive Deals). which alone makes it better value compared to, say, Netflix. But again, you have to like the programming, and that’s different for every person’s viewing choice.

Insider Saving Secret #11

This is all tied to whether or not you actually need Prime. In the calculations that we have done, if you buy more than three items per month from Amazon and those are your shopping habits, you are 100% the perfect person to use that Prime membership because all of the benefits over time, especially for larger-scale deliveries, and the discounts passed along to you generally allow your Prime membership to pay for itself plus a few other bonuses.

And the reason we’re telling you that is, for example, that if you shop for food at Amazon Fresh, your grocery savings are huge as a Prime member.

If you have a growing family, the Amazon family discounts of 20% on nappies and baby food subscriptions make it worth it. And there are exclusive deals for you. In addition to deals that become available as early access deals to Prime members.

Amazon Fresh is only available at selected locations. At the time of writing, it covers the Greater London area. Read more about Amazon Fresh and save on discount codes in our article.

Bonus – Insider Saving Secret #12

Amazon Renewed is a great way to pick up expertly refurbished products at great prices. Better still, they are backed by a 1-year Amazon renewal guarantee.

All the items, mainly electronic, are professionally inspected, rigorously tested, and come with a 1-year guarantee and 24/7 Amazon support. So you can shop more and worry less!

Buying pre-owned extends the product’s life, reduces e-waste (less landfill waste), and increases raw material extraction.

To find the perfect gift, you can shop on Amazon Renewed by product categories such as smartphones, cameras, office products, and home and kitchen appliances.

Amazon Renewed falls under the company’s Climate Pledge Friendly policy. So next time you’re on Amazon, look out for the Compact by Design and Pre-owned Certified icons and help save the planet while you save money shopping online.

Shopping Secrets Exposed!

The daily deals and early access to some of the most popular products, especially around occasions like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Prime Day are all tied to your prime membership. Crazy things like if you’re a Prime member and you place an order through your Echo device, there’s sometimes additional savings that you can unlock.

And these are all topics upon which we focus throughout our blog, but insider savings for Prime members might make it worth your while.

Here’s a bonus shopping secret for those of you who have a growing family: the Baby Registry on Amazon gives tons of discounts to family members, including free welcome boxes up to £20 worth of products. Complete a registry, and you get a discount on items that are left in your registry. If people don’t buy them from your baby wish list, Prime members receive up to 15% off them. Start-up costs for a growing family add up to a lot of money, so you could make substantial savings.

If you’ve read this article to the end, thank you! But if you’re still wondering, should you cancel your Prime membership? What are the hidden perks of your Prime membership? These and other topics are covered in this blog to help you stay informed and save money.

So for today, that concludes our 12 shopping secrets Amazon doesn’t want you to know about the post. Do you have any others? Share them with our saving community in the comments below or in our forum (only available to subscribers to our newsletter).

12 SHOPPING SECRETS Amazon Doesn’t Want You to Know!