How to create deal alerts for Prime Day: 5 useful tools

Here at PCWorld, we do our best to keep you informed on great deals in tech, but sometimes that’s just not enough. We can’t possibly anticipate everything you might want to buy online, especially when the products are too niche or when they fall outside the realm of tech entirely.

That’s why rolling your own deal alerts is an invaluable skill for saving money online. By setting up alerts and reminders for just the products you actually care about, you’ll stand less chance of missing out when prices fall, and you’ll avoid getting duped by “sales” on products with inflated list prices.

With Amazon Prime Day set for June 21 and June 22, now’s the perfect time to get situated. Here are a handful of my favorite tools for tracking prices online, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

For more bargain-hunting tips, see how to snag Prime Day Lightning Deals.

CamelCamelCamel for Amazon price alerts

For Amazon in particular, CamelCamelCamel (pictured above) is a tool that no shopper should be without, as it allows you to view the price history of any product on the site and set up email alerts when prices fall.

To look up a product on CamelCamelCamel, either search for it by name or copy and paste the entire Amazon product page address into CamelCamelCamel’s search bar. You’ll see a line graph of the product’s price over time, along with an alert setup box for entering a desired price and your email address. You can also add the Camelizer extension to Chrome, Firefox, or Safari, letting you load the price history with one click from any Amazon listing.

Keep in mind that CamelCamelCamel tracks prices separately for third-party merchants and used products, so you’ll have to set up additional alerts for each of the listings, but there’s no limit on how many alerts you can set up.

Google Shopping for other retailers

Jared Newman / IDG

For more price history insights on non-Amazon stores, give Google’s Shopping website a try, as it has a somewhat-hidden ability to get alerts from other retailers. Here’s how to find it:

• Search for any product on the Shopping homepage.
• Scroll past the initial list of “Sponsored” listings at the top
• Click the name of the product you want to track
• Click the blue “View product details” link in the expanded info box.
• On the next page, look for the box showing a range of typical prices, and click the “Track price” toggle underneath.

Just one caveat: Google Shopping has a nasty habit of occasionally listing unscrupulous retailers alongside legitimate ones. If a price looks too good to be true on a site you’ve never heard of, ignore it.