I had a conversation a few days after New Year which highlighted just how bad last-minute shopping Christmas shopping can be. Two people might have the same budget to spend on Christmas shopping but I can almost guarantee that the one who started thinking about it first will have been able to find better value in both quantity and quality of gifts purchased.

My personal situation is slightly forced upon me with my other half having her birthday in November. This means I really have to start considering birthday and Christmas presents in late September or I’ll blow my load (so to say) inspirationally and monetarily on her birthday, therefore having nothing left for Christmas.

To combat that eventuality I use Amazon’s shopping basket to work for me. Every time I think of something I could buy from there I add it to my Shopping Basket and click ‘Save for later’. Then, so long as I check in every few days and look at my shopping basket I will find that Amazon informs me whether prices have risen or dropped. What seems to happen is that Amazon does a price comparison and beats all the competitor sites such as Play, HMV, CD WOW etc. by a couple of pence at least. Very often that means that Amazon prices can rise massively in a day or two simply because all the competitors have cancelled deals they had on.

 

These notices tell you whether prices rise or fall, these as of 31st Jan 2011

So, whilst this Amazon trick can’t account for special offers such as multi-buys on other sites (3 for 2 etc.) you will still find that it beats everyone else by quite a bit. It certainly saves me a lot of time shopping around because so far I’m yet to find a reputable site beat the Amazon price on anything I’ve shopped for. And I have tried, trust me.

And then here are the price changes on 1st Feb 2011

The joy of this system is that you will find your money goes far further than if you’re left scrambling around the high street on Christmas Eve or even bulk-purchasing online in the fortnight before the big day.