Introduction
The number of Amazon Prime members has sky rocketed in recent years. According to a recent article in Time Magazine customer numbers have increased from around 304 million annually in 2015 to today, where roughly half of all American households hold a Prime membership (as of August 2018!)
Shocking right?
Money Magazine’s great article & video shown below offer many more tips for saving money too.
Many Prime members like myself tend to buy much of their online merchandise from Amazon because their combination of free and fast shipping along with their vast array of products make shopping there so fast and easy.
Amazon has strengthened customer bonding even more through many novel features like voice purchasing using Alexa, and Dash buttons (which are little WiFi buttons you place near replenish-able resources you buy regularly to quickly reorder when you’re running out.)
But everyone who does purchase from Amazon frequently knows that they need to be diligent about checking prices because they tend to fluctuate…a lot! That’s where camelcamelcamel.com comes in.
What’s Camel Camel Camel?
Camel Camel Camel is a brilliant web Service that acts as a price tracker which provides buyers with all sorts of tools they can use to make sure they get the best price Amazon has to offer when making a purchase. This is accomplished through the use of several tools which are described on their ‘Feature’s’ page.
Below: The brains behind Camel Camel Camel…3 guys who together comprise it’s ‘parent organization ‘Cosmic Shovel.’
According to Wikipedia…Camel Camel Camel was voted as the most popular price tracking tool among Lifehacker readers in 2015. They are referring to this great Lifehacker article which talks about the best price-tracking tools available in 2015.
Camel Camel Camel Availability
You can use Camel Camel Camel if you live in one of the countries below and it’s available in the languages shown below too.
Links to Countries
How to Use Camel Camel Camel (aka CCC)
Using Camel Camel Camel is really fast and simple but you might not figure that out when you first visit their website..
That’s the main reason why I’m writing this short guide. I just recently discovered this great service but found it confusing getting started. So after spending a little time researching it, I’m including what I think are the easiest ways to use it along with tips on the main types of devices you can use with it too.
Don’t be fooled by the brevity of this guide. While brevity isn’t a usual characteristic of my posts, the fact that this guide is short should tell you that with my tips anyone can quickly be off and running using CCC.
Using it on a Computer
CCC calls their price history tools Camelizers. If you’re using a computer…either a desktop or laptop…there are 2 options for automatically using CCC’s Camelizer while shopping at Amazon.
Install a Browser Extension
CCC offers browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers. You can find the browser extensions here.
Install a Bookmarklet
If you’re not used to using browser extensions you may find the use of a bookmarklet simpler. You’ll find the bookmarklet here. This bookmarklet works with any browser. You install it by dragging the three camels to your browser’s toolbar (see illustration below.)
Using it With Mobile Devices Like Cell Phones and Tablets
Neither of the alternatives above works well on mobile devices. Probably the easiest method of using CCC on any mobile device is to simply bookmark their Home Page and use the search bar at the top to paste the Amazon URL for the product you’re interested in into the search bar which appears at the top.
Note: Camel Camel Camel includes the Amazon price search box on virtually every page of their website.
When you hit enter you should see something like the 2nd screenshot below that I generated to see the price history of Echo Spots. The Echo Spot is in my opinion the most versatile Echo device Amazon currently makes for the best price. It combines the features of the original Echo along with the touch screen features of the Echo Show (which is my 2nd most favorite Echo device)…all in a small, attractive looking package.
I’m researching Echo Spot’s price history because I’ll be buying a large quantity of them as Christmas presents for all our nieces, nephews and our own kids to use as a super easy way of video chatting with their Grandparents. Since Amazon always offers various deals for Echo devices, I wanted to compare whatever deals they offer currently to the lowest historic price of Echo Spots.
As you can see in the next 2 screenshots, the best price I can currently purchase Spots for is $109.99, by buying them in quantities of 2. Whereas the lowest historical price for 1 Spot was $99.
The $99 price was during Amazon’s annual Prime Day sale which I wrote about here. I actually did buy the 6 Spots then, but 6 was the most that Amazon allowed one customer to buy and I need more than that. Given the information CCC is showing me, $109 may be the best price I’ll see before Christmas. But I think I’ll wait a bit longer because the price of Echo Show has come down so much since its launch, and I suspect that the Spot, which is their newest device may do the same. Plus that, now that I know about CCC I can set up a price alert for the Echo Spot!
If you’re wondering why I’ve grown somewhat obsessed with these 2 devices prices (aside from the fact that I’m buying quite a few of them) it’s because somewhat ironically the Show, which is a much larger device, originally sold at $299 (this is the price I paid for my first one.) But it’s now being sold for the exact same price as the Spot…$129.99! This very low Show price however, is a shopping trip-term back-to-school special that Amazon is currently running which ends September 1.
Mobile Apps for Camel Camel Camel
A Developer who isn’t affiliated with Camel Camel Camel created apps that work in conjunction with Amazon’s mobile shopping app for Android. Try Camel is the app most users turn to if they use an Android device. Try Camel is free and is used in conjunction with the Share icon on Android.
You’ll find Amazon’s mobile shopping app for Android cell phones here, Android tablets here.
Apple’s ios users aren’t quite as lucky. No one makes an app that interfaces to CCC’s database of information. There are however other price tracking apps that do work with Amazon. Price Alert for Amazon by Alexandros Koutsonasios appears to be the most popular. While it’s free like Camel Camel Camel is…they do offer paid versions too, which means some tools and features are withheld from basic users.
The primary focus of this app appears to be receiving price alerts and the biggest user gripe is that the $3.99 paid version is only available on a subscription basis. While $3.99 isn’t expensive, there are many users like myself who hate subscription based apps and generally won’t get them at all. I do realize that developers need a way to incentivize themselves to keep their apps up-to-date, yet unless it’s a very complex utility or unique service that the app offers, I just can’t seem to justify all those ongoing small charges which can quickly add up to very expensive without my even noticing. Generally I’ve found that no app is worth an expensive ongoing and recurring charge to me. That definitely seems to be the case here because the app has very limited utility of a fairly common kind and there seem to be a lot of quirky glitches or oversites too.
That’s why utilizing CCC’s online price history checks, price alert tools and other unique features seems to be the far superior route to go.
Some Other Cool Features Camel Camel Camel Offers
You can see Amazon largest price drops arranged by category…the same product categories that Amazon uses…on a daily basis here.
You can set up a Price Alert so that you receive a Twitter message or an email when a product you’re watching drops in price. There are different options for doing this which you can read about here.
You can synchronize any Amazon Wishlist so that you can watch for price drops on a whole group of products you’re interested in here.
I’m not entirely certain how this feature works yet, but I think that you can see other sellers’ prices outside of Amazon too.
You can also use Camel Camel Camel to assist your search for the best prices at Newegg and Best Buy.
Another Interesting Utility I Ran Across While Doing Research on CCC
Who among my readers is familiar with Product Hunt? Product Hunt is a great social networking app that assists new products to make it to market. It has a huge following of the techiest and nerdiest amongst us. That’s why, when I failed to find a true CCC ios app I decided to expand my search utilizing Product Hunt.
As always, Product Hunt didn’t disappoint!
Welcome to Waatcher
After I’d perused several promising apps at Product Hunt I choose Waatcher as the one to seriously consider. Waatcher offers a very unique solution to the whole ‘waiting for the best price’ problem.
I really love the simplicity of Waatcher…but please understand that it’s a service which is brand new to me…I have no track record with using it.
The main jist of Waatcher is this. You indicate a price for a specific product and sign into your Amazon account with the app (the app doesn’t see your Amazon user credentials.) If or when that price is realized Waatcher places an order for that product for you.
That’s pretty much it for Waatcher. It performs this one function for you because price alerts apparently can change so frequently and at such inopportune times that CCC users oftentimes are sleeping when a long-awaited price decline occurs and they miss it completely. Watch a tutorial about using Waatcher here.
Links to Written & Video Tutorials
AMZ Finder recently wrote this great guide.
Fulltime FBA has written a great guide to understanding the pricing shown at Camel Camel Camel.
Fulltime FBA’s Video Guide to Understanding Pricing
Fulltime FBA’s Video Guide to Using with a PC and Chrome
Video Guide for Using the Android App
Getting Help
Here’s a link to CCC’S Help and FAQ’s Page.
You can read all about how Camel Camel Camel’s price checking system works here.
You can ask questions about using CCC at Amazon’s seller’s forum.
You can email CCC’s support team at support@camelcamelcamel.com.
You can follow CCC on Twitter at the 3 handles shown in the screenshot below.
Price Watching Has Reached Almost Epidemic Proportions
It never ceases to amaze me how often I end up running across many other mainstream articles when I’m researching what I think is a relatively obscure topic that I’m writing about. In this instance, in addition to the Money Magazine article mentioned in my introduction I found this great and very recent CBS News article that talks about Amazon being the subject of investigation because of its potential use of ‘surge pricing,’ (like Uber.)
Amazon Affiliate Disclosure
I’m an Amazon Associate which means that I earn a very small commission when someone purchases an Amazon product using a link I provide. You can read more about what the affiliate relationship and commissions entail in the screenshot below.
Comments
Please leave any comments or questions in the box found by scrolling further down the page.
Follow @vsatips
vsatips 
Great job on this!
LikeLike
Thanks so much for visiting and taking the time to let me know. I really appreciate it :-)
LikeLike