EDIT: Thank you for all of the awards! I can't take full credit, my girlfriend told me about it in another sub :)

SOURCE: r/writingservice (Thanks u/heyimjulia123)

camelcamelcamel is a website that compares prices of Amazon items, when they were at lowest price/highest, notifies you of deals on items, price histories on items. It's actually been super helpful and that's why I wanted to rant about it lol

When I discovered CCC, I loaded it up with boardgames hoping to snag some sweet deals. Naturally, I set it to notify me when the lowest recorded price for a game pops up again. Since that time, both games I've ordered from CCC notifications have been scams.

Let me stress that this isn't a problem with CCC. The site is working as designed, and it works very well. I received an e-mail when the games hit the price I entered (a price that wasn't obscenely low for two separate games that are several years old) and I immediately placed my order.

However, I didn't realize that offering was from a brand new third-party seller/scammer. These sellers take forever to move on the product, then send you a fake tracking number (that constantly claims the item has "shipped" and is in "transit from seller to the carrier"). They give you an obscenely far off delivery date and, since the item has "shipped", they've taken your money and you can't just cancel your order.

Now I'm stuck waiting for the far off delivery date to come and go, then filing a claim with Amazon A-to-Z to get my money back. I've now contacted both sellers and asked for a refund in hopes of speeding this process up with Amazon (as you can file an A-to-Z claim if the seller is non-communicative) and I'm fully confident that I'll get my money back, but obviously I'd have rather avoided this scam to begin with. Had these games been purchased for an event, birthday, or other holiday, and not just growing my game shelf, I'd be in trouble.

So, be warned. Scammers are obviously targeting board games on Amazon and CCC is being made an unwitting accomplice. Before you place your order, make sure the seller is legit with a history of verified purchases. This seems like an obvious step, but if you've grown complacent with the ease and reliability with Amazon (as I had), it's an easy one to overlook.

hey guys! I just found out this website called camelcamelcamel.com , can someone tell me if thats a scam? Thank you!

There is a website called camelcamelcamel. It analyzes an Amazon product showing when it was the cheapest and the products price history.

Just because something is 40% off doesn't mean it's a deal. This website is very handy to weed out the fake "Black Friday Deals".

Sale season is coming up. I remember how I used to react to big discount tags - it led to impulsive purchases. But now there are free websites where you can check the price history for items you want. Just search "amazon price history", "aliexpress price history" etc., on Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, ... and look at the price chart. You’ll quickly see if the discount is real, the best price to buy at, and during which sale the price could be lower. Be smart and save your money!

Does anyone here have any information/experience on how reliable is the price history of camelcamelcamel? I am seriously considering using that for a business of mine. But as I see from the camelcamelcamel website that such history is derived not from Amazon (but a third-party), I am really curious about the source and whether it can provide my business up-to-date results in a timely manner. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

(Edit 22/12/2019):

To clarify: Apparently the prices came directly from the API provided by Amazon (and NOT third-party as what I had misunderstood it to be earlier) and such prices are recorded over time in their database which then provides us the price histories.

Camelcamelcamel also highlights in a blog post the average frequency at which prices are updated for different regions of the world (https://camelcamelcamel.com/blog/how-our-price-checking-system-works).

I've been trying to find the most accurate tool lately.

CamelCamelCamel looks clean and simple, but I feel like it misses some deals or updates too slowly. Keepa seems more powerful, but it's a bit overwhelming with all the charts and options.

Update: CamelCamelCamel is good and I have used it for 2 weeks. Task Monkey extension is completely exceeded my expectations! It got me back $80 from my early orders.

It seems like a bunch of data isn't being updated or seen by CamelCamelCamel now (specifically for me the used category), what other sites are people using to monitor these prices?

My short bio: In 2008, I created http://camelcamelcamel.com/ -- an Amazon price tracker -- as a code experiment / demo, not intending for it to be a long term project nor really anything other than something interesting to work on. People started (and kept) using it, so I kept working on it, and now it is 9 years later. I currently have two incredibly smart and talented people working with me full-time on the project.

I received a lot of AMA requests in a thread in r/Entrepreneur, so today is the day! To pre-answer the basic stuff... here's our Quantcast profile, for traffic related questions: https://www.quantcast.com/camelcamelcamel.com ; we had our millionth user registration in December 2016; and sorry but I won't be answering questions about our revenue or other incredibly confidential info.

I will be around for most of the day, but need to launch some things today so please forgive me if my responses aren't always immediate.

My Proof: https://twitter.com/camelcamelcamel/status/838814719670525958

Edit: After a verification snafu, we are back.

By the way, we've got a fledgling sub r/camelcamelcamel/ if anyone would like to help make it goodly.

I'm new to the physical media (well, back in from the 1990/2000's). I bought a Panasonic UB-820 at Backfriday and I've been on fire with getting dvd's because of all the sales. But I've been using camelcamelcamel as suggested to try and find the best deals and what the history of the prices have been. But I'm finding they don't always how the "Best Deal for 3rd Party" or it's not listed. I assume it's because they get a little kickback with the link to Amazon. For example I know Warriors form Arrow 4K is on sale at Barnes & Noble for $29.99 vs. Amazon for $59.99. Is there another website to checkout or is doing a Google searching Shopping the best way to compare prices?

Don't fall for the cheap quality electronic products either that are "slashed" down. Check rtings for non biased reviews!

Edit:

Disclaimer: "There is some evidence to support the claim that Rtings is biased. For example, in a 2020 study, researchers found that Rtings' reviews were more likely to be positive for products that had been advertised on the site. The study also found that Rtings' reviewers were more likely to recommend products that were more expensive.

However, it is important to note that these findings do not necessarily mean that Rtings is deliberately biased. It is possible that the correlations between advertising and positive reviews and between price and recommendation are simply the result of the fact that advertisers and manufacturers are more likely to submit products for review that they believe will be favorably reviewed. Additionally, Rtings has a policy of not accepting payment for reviews, so it is unlikely that any bias is the result of direct financial incentives."