Amazon’s prices are often great. But they are not always the best.
This is your holiday season reminder that Amazon doesn’t always have the lowest prices
A few extra minutes can save you a few bucks.
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Jason Del Rey has been a business journalist for 15 years and has covered Amazon, Walmart, and the e-commerce industry for the last decade. He was a senior correspondent at Vox.
That’s a worthwhile reminder this time of year considering tens of millions of you are Amazon Prime members, which makes you less likely to compare prices before buying on Amazon.
But you should. Case in point: Leading up to the holiday season, Google’s price comparison site showed better prices than Amazon on nearly 60 percent of Amazon bestsellers, according to the pricing firm 360pi.
In the lead-up to the holiday rush, some other online retailers showed signs they were going to be much more aggressive this year in matching or beating Amazon on prices. Walmart, as an example, was beating Amazon on 20 percent of top-selling toys that both retailers were selling. Walmart also matched Amazon’s price on another 35 percent of these goods.
Over at Jet.com, now owned by Walmart, you could find better prices on 46 percent of top-selling toys that both sites carried.
Amazon is often still the best option, either because its price is the lowest or customers value its unbeatable selection and steady reliability this time of year over anything else. But spending a few minutes checking prices elsewhere can sometimes save you money.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
