You enjoy shopping. You’re also part of the 86% of online shoppers who’d try a new store or brand due to a coupon.

But one thing that takes away from the fun is constantly looking for these types of deals.

Imagine being able to buy your favorite products at their lowest prices. Here’s the kicker: You don’t have to track multiple websites, thanks to something called price tracking.

If you’re looking for an easy way to save money and make informed purchasing decisions, price tracking is the way to go.

In this article, we’ll explore what price tracking is, how it works, its benefits, popular tools, and how you can get started.

How Price Tracking Works

Price tracking is the process of using tools or websites to check the price changes of products over time.

Why would someone want to go through such trouble, you ask? Doing so helps you make informed decisions like saving money, avoiding overpaying for products, and taking advantage of sales or discounts.

And it’s actually not much trouble at all. Here’s how it works:

1. You choose the product you want to monitor. You just add them to your watchlist using a price-tracking tool.
2. The tool will automatically track prices and send notifications or alerts when there are price drops or sales.
3. You can also use price tracking tools to compare prices across different retailers, which helps you easily find the best deal available.
4. Some price tracking tools even provide historical data. They show a product’s past prices, which help you decide the best time to purchase.

Unfortunately, price-tracking tools aren’t available for certain products or services. So, you’d likely have to look over the websites of your competitors.

Benefits of Price Tracking

Price tracking comes with quite a few advantages. The most obvious is cost savings and finding optimal prices. By accessing the prices of products in a single dashboard, you can more easily find products at their lowest prices.

Price tracking can also help you avoid impulse purchases. By regularly monitoring prices, you’re more likely to wait for the best deal.

You also get convenience. Automated tracking and notifications save time and effort because they eliminate the need for you to check prices manually.

Last but not least, price tracking tools make it easy to find sales, discounts, and the best offers available, ensuring you get the most value for your money.

But price tracking doesn’t only benefit the consumer. It’s also a strategic choice on the business side, according to business owners and executives.

For example, Ed Diaz, President of Band of Brothers Tours, shares:

“For businesses like Beaches of Normandy, our head company, price tracking becomes a strategic tool. It allows us to monitor costs and adjust our Band of Brothers Tour pricing accordingly. This ensures we remain competitive, but price tracking offers a deeper benefit. 

By understanding how seasonality affects fixed and variable costs, at Beaches of Normandy, we can lower prices during the off-season. Fixed costs like salaries and offices remain constant, but variable costs like accommodation rates and entrance fees often fluctuate. 

Price tracking tools can help identify these fluctuations, allowing us to potentially adjust our Band of Brothers Tour pricing to reflect lower variable costs during the off-season while offering an excellent level of services.” 

Popular Price Tracking Tools & Websites

One of the best price tracking strategies is leveraging price tracking tools that help do all the heavy lifting. Let’s take a look at the most popular ones below.

Capital One Shopping

Capital One Shopping is a free browser tool that automatically searches for online coupons, better prices, and rewards at thousands of retailers.

The browser extension is compatible with Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari. It’s also available on mobile through an iOS and Android app.

As you shop online, the Capital One Shopping extension will work in the background to help you find the best deals and easily compare prices across retailers.

Capital One Shopping stands out from other price tracking tools because it allows you to redeem rewards from shopping with its partner sites.

CamelCamelCamel

CamelCamelCamel is another great price-tracking tool. It’s a free price tracker that checks products and alerts you when prices drop on Amazon.

You can also check a product’s price history to help you determine the best time to buy. You just enter a product’s URL into the CamelCamelCamel search bar. Then, scroll down to see the price history graph. From there, you’ll be able to see the different sellers and date ranges.

Look for trends in price changes. Maybe the price of a particular product drops during certain months. That’s likely when you’ll want to shop.

Honey

PayPal Honey offers a browser extension that automatically looks for coupons when you shop on select sites like Amazon, Macy’s, Target, and Walmart. It’s recently captured a lot of market share in the pricing tracking space. Then, it’ll apply the coupon code with the biggest savings to your shopping cart.

With Honey’s Droplist feature, you can add items from some of your favorite stores. If the price drops on one of your Droplisted items, you’ll receive an instant notification.

SlickDeals

Slickdeals brings you up-to-the-minute discounts and coupons from around the web. It’s a community-driven platform where users share deals, discounts, and price drops. The best part? There’s no impact on product quality.

One of the standout features of Slickdeals is its Custom Deal Alert System that helps you stay updated on deals that match your specific interests.

Here’s how it works:

1. You set up your preferences based on keywords, brands, categories, etc.
2. Customize the frequency and types of alerts you want to receive.
3. The system continuously tracks the deals posted on SlickDeals
4. When a deal matching your criteria makes it on the platform, you receive a notification.

Keepa

Keepa is another great Amazon price tracking platform that offers detailed price history graphs and real-time price alerts.

Its detailed price history graphs display the price changes of Amazon products over time, allowing you to see historical pricing trends. You can see data from different sellers, including Amazon itself, third-party new, and third-party used.

You can also set up price drop alerts for different products. When a price falls below your chosen threshold, Keepa sends a notification.

PriceGrabber

PriceGrabber is a web-based price-tracking tool that allows you to compare prices across retail stores. When you search for a specific product, PriceGrabber will show a list of prices from different retailers.

This helps you quickly identify the best deals available and make smarter purchasing decisions.

PriceGrabber also allows you to set price alerts and compare bottom-line prices. Another great feature of the platform is the ability to scan bar codes on your phone while you shop. With this feature, you can instantly compare prices and read reviews.

CheapShark

Are you a gamer looking for deals on top video games? CheapShark is a great platform for that.

It allows you to easily compare PC game prices across a variety of digital storefronts. It includes major platforms like Steam, GOG, Green Man Gaming, Humble Bundle, Fanatical, and more.

CheapShark also highlights ongoing deals, discounts, and sales. It regularly updates its listings to reflect current promotions. This allows you to quickly take advantage of limited-time offers.

ShopSavvy

ShopSavvy is a mobile app that aggregates prices from thousands of retailers, which provides a comprehensive comparison of prices for millions of products.

Whether you’re looking for groceries, electronics, clothing, or home goods, ShopSavvy helps you find the best prices available.

ShopSavvy also offers a barcode scanning feature. Using the mobile app, you can scan the barcode of any product to instantly compare prices from various online and local retailers. This comes in handy if you’re shopping in-store, as you can check if you can get a better deal elsewhere.

Examples of Successful Price Tracking

• A consumer can save $200 on a high-end laptop by using CamelCamelCamel to track Amazon prices and wait for a significant price drop.
• A family of five reduces their holiday spending expenses by 25% after using Honey and SlickDeals to find the best deals and apply discounts.
• A shopper saves around 15% per month on groceries by tracking prices and sales through PriceGrabber and combining it with weekly discount codes.

Best Practices for Price Tracking to Score the Best Deals

To help you get the biggest bang for your buck, we’ve listed some best practices for successful price tracking.

• Use multiple tools to get a comprehensive view of price trends and ensure you don’t miss out on deals.
• Use historical price data to identify patterns in price changes during certain times of the year (i.e., Black Friday, Cyber Monday)
• Don’t rush to buy as soon as you see a price drop. Compare the current price with historical data to judge if it’s truly the best deal or if further drops are likely.
• Consider setting up price alerts for the same product across different platforms. This guarantees you capture all possible deals, as prices and discounts can vary between retailers.
• Set realistic price targets. Setting the threshold too low might mean you’ll never get an alert. But setting it too high could lead to more frequent, less meaningful notifications. So, try to balance your targeted savings with market trends.

Maximize Value for Your Money with Price Tracking

We all want to save money on products. But when it’s inconvenient to find deals, compare prices, and observe price history to predict potential price drops in competitive markets, it’s easier to settle for a relatively higher price.

Thankfully, there are price-tracking tools out there that get rid of this hassle in a competitive landscape.

So, why not take advantage of them? Chances are, your shopping experience will be more enjoyable because you’re maximizing savings and finding the best deals effortlessly.