How to use price trackers to get the best deals on holiday shopping
This is the season of giving, so why not give yourself the gift of savings while you are checking items off your loved ones' wish lists?
Similar to price alerts for flights, price trackers can notify you of the lowest prices when you are shopping online. They are easy to use, but each one works a bit differently.
Here are the best price trackers to help you maximize savings this holiday shopping season.
Related: 23 wanderlust-y gifts for travelers, used by expert travelers
Capital One Shopping
Capital One Shopping is a free tool that works with all major browsers. After you install the extension or download the app and sign up for a free account, Capital One Shopping can help you save money in a few different ways.
First, Capital One Shopping will apply any available coupons and promo codes to get you the biggest discounts on your purchases.
Second, when you shop on Amazon, Capital One Shopping will automatically scan other online retailers for a lower price. For full disclosure, sometimes that "lower price" is in the form of Capital One Shopping Rewards (which you can redeem for select gift cards), so you'll need to pay close attention when deciding where to buy.
Related: Best Amazon Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Travel Tuesday deals
You can also browse stores and items directly on the Capital One Shopping site to view pricing and special offers from a variety of retailers, ensuring you always get the best available price.
Karma
Karma is a free browser extension and mobile app that can help you save money at thousands of online retailers. Karma lets you compare offers when you shop online. You can also view price trends and set price alerts to receive notifications if the price drops. You'll also be notified of any new coupons or when out-of-stock items become available again. Like other price-tracking services, Karma can find and apply coupon codes to help you save even more money.
Camelcamelcamel
If you can get past the odd name, Camelcamelcamel is one of the most robust and easy-to-use price-tracking tools on the market. Like similar services, it is free to use. It also offers a browser extension and free account sign-up, but Camelcamelcamel focuses specifically on Amazon pricing.
Even without an account, you can enter the URL of any item on Amazon into Camelcamelcamel's website to view the price history (including the current, average, lowest-ever and highest-ever prices) and details about the product. You can also see the most recent and most popular items with price drops if you want to do some virtual window-shopping.
When you sign up for an account, you can create Amazon price watches and receive email alerts whenever the price drops for your watched items.
Bottom line
Even with all of the amazing sales going on between now and the end of the year, these price trackers can help you save even more on your holiday shopping. They couldn't be easier to use, either. Just install the extension on your browser (or the app on your phone), sign up for a free account and shop.
You'll never have to scour the internet comparing prices again. These apps do the hard work for you so you can knock out your holiday shopping and give yourself the precious gifts of time and money saved this year.
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