We live in a day and age where you can probably buy every thing on-line - Tech, groceries, clothes.... A CAR!
One giant conglomerate is Amazon, Amazon is basically a giant on-line market place - some products are sold by Amazon directly and some by 3rd party sellers using it's platform.
In this article I will try to give you all the basics in order to give you more bang for your buck! I will not discuss prices directly, nor I will discuss shipping rates or times as they may vary by your current location, availability of the item and the shipping country (I will try to cover those at a later article).
There is more than one Amazon
Well, that's the first and most important thing to teach - there are more than one Amazon region and each one has it's own prices, taxes and shipping cost. If you're looking for a specific product - head over to each of them and check the final price prior to purchase.
NOTE: In the very likely case you can't read the local language - try installing Google Chrome browser and using the auto-translate option.
Among the different regions you can find:
Amazon.com - USA
Amazon.es - Spain
Amazon.it - Italy
Amazon.de - Germany
Amazon.fr - France
Amazon.co.uk - England
Find the AmazonGlobal products
This is an important one - in case you're shopping for high priced items, try to find and official Amazon global eligible items.
Why is that? Well, that way Amazon takes down the local region taxes (excluding Amazon.com) and adds the shipping and your region taxes - that way the shipping goes smoothly.
IMPORTANT ADVICE: You may look for a particular product - one color may be shipped by AmazonGlobal, and the other color MAY NOT! so pay attention.
DISCLAIMER: This is based on a vast shopping experience up to when the article was uploaded.
You can't go wrong with the CAMEL!
There is one Google Chrome browser add-on I totally recommend and that is the CamelCamelCamel linked here
There is also a website carrying the same name, where all you need is to copy the link to the product page.
The site let's you do 2 main things that will make your shopping better than ever:
See the product price history (As long as someone has searched it on the site before), that way you know if the price can go lower than the current one.
Let's you register with your email for a specific price - once reached, you'll receive an email.
Customer service done right
Amazon has one of the best customer service I've ever encountered. Of course, the best customer service is given to the items sold directly from Amazon, and not 3rd party seller, as Amazon request to contact 3rd party sellers directly in order to resolve issues before interfering.
When contacting Amazon customer service, you must describe the full extent of your inquiry, because partial information will make the customer service longer and more frustrating than ever due to the fact that it will probably bounce and replied by a different operator every time.
Be decisive with your inquiry.