13 Mistakes We Make When Shopping at Amazon

Shopping using the Amazon app is a way of life for millions of consumers worldwide. It’s convenient and straightforward, but shoppers can still make mistakes while navigating the app. Men and women can make mistakes while shopping, even if it’s virtually.

The following is a list of mistakes everybody makes when logged in to Amazon. If you can avoid these mistakes, you’ll set yourself up for an unbelievable experience that will save you lots of money and headaches in the long run.

We Don’t Read Reviews

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Photos can be incredibly deceiving. A product you find on Amazon can look fantastic. Still, you can only really know how well it’s made or how well it performs if you dive into the item’s reviews. So many of us overlook this aspect of shopping on Amazon, and we’ve bought tons of bad products because of it over the years.

It’s essential to read through reviews, even the negative ones. It’s the best way to get a clear view of a product, and reading reviews gives more information than pictures ever could.

We Miss Convenient Coupons

Amazon is known for offering generous discounts on certain items that shoppers don’t need to jump through hoops to get. One of the most overlooked features of Amazon are clickable discount coupons that appear before placing an item in our carts.

These coupons are easy to miss, but fortunately, they’re incredibly easy to apply to our order. All it takes is one click, and you save a few dollars. Keep your eyes peeled for these underrated discounts.

We Leave Things in Our Cart

In a way, the idea of a virtual shopping cart is an ingenious way to keep shoppers engaged in the entire Amazon experience. There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to move forward with a purchase, but leaving items in your cart without entirely deleting them is a pitfall many shoppers fall into.

Amazon is counting on the fact that although you may not want to buy the products in your cart now, you may wish to purchase them later today, tonight, tomorrow, or next week. This psychological ploy is designed to make you spend as much as possible in their ecosystem, so it’s critical shoppers are aware of this tactic.

We Get Tricked By Misleading Discounts

It’s happened to all of us before: We buy something off Amazon that we never needed in the first place because we were drawn in by a massive “discount,” sometimes 50% or more, for a random product. Don’t make this mistake. Look past the discount and always treat the product’s sale price as its actual everyday price.

It’s easy for merchants and sellers to hike up the price of their products and immediately place a “discount” on them, giving off the illusion of a great deal. In most cases, it isn’t a good deal at all. Be on the lookout and always research before getting suckered in by these phony discounts.

We Only Look at the Star Rating

For many people, shopping on Amazon is as easy as searching for a keyword and scrolling until they find the highest-rated product on their screen. However, shoppers should always use a critical eye. Star ratings can be influenced heavily by the seller and should always be taken with a grain of salt.

While most Amazon sellers are authentic and legitimate, not all their reviews may be. Look for poorly worded, generic reviews left for high-profile items. That’s usually a sign that those reviews are illegitimate and that you should think twice before purchasing.

We Order From a Third-Party Seller

The most convenient thing about Amazon is that most of its products ship directly from an Amazon location and arrive at our doors in record time. It doesn’t get much better than that if you’re a consumer living in 2024.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to move too quickly through the ordering process and not realize you ordered an item from a third-party seller that is only loosely related to the Amazon universe. These items often don’t come with Prime’s free expedited shipping and usually cost more than ordering from Amazon directly or through one of their preferred retail partners.

We Order From an Overseas Seller

Many cheaper products don’t come from Amazon sellers based in the United States. Sellers located in countries like China commonly hawk inexpensive goods on Amazon, which is fine until you realize the cute Halloween costume for your kid you ordered won’t arrive until closer to Thanksgiving.

Ordering from overseas sellers is a crucial mistake we all make since it deprives us of one of Amazon’s greatest perks: its lightning-fast shipping through Amazon Prime.

We Ignore the Subscribe & Save Option

Amazon’s Subscribe & Save option is excellent if you grasp your monthly finances. Although Amazon is banking on you forgetting you even signed up for a recurring payment in the first place, you can come out on top by using the Subscribe & Save option (which comes with a discount), even if you have no intention of keeping your subscription active. Don’t ignore this option!

In addition, if you find yourself ordering the same item regularly, you might consider using the Subscribe & Save option to lock in a price that always knocks a few dollars off a one-off purchase.

We Shop When We’re Tired or Are Distracted

Impulse shopping happens when we load up the Amazon app after a night out, while watching television, or even when we pass the time at work. As you can guess, this leads to buying things we don’t even fully realize we’re purchasing. It’s time to become more financially responsible.

Stop shopping when you’re tired or distracted. Set alerts on your smartphone to prevent you from shopping late at night or on the weekend. The money we spend on Amazon purchases quickly adds up, and we’d all be better off if we spent just a tiny bit less.

We’re Lazy

One of the biggest mistakes we make when shopping online in general (but especially on Amazon) is being lazy and not clicking through to different colors, fabrics, and designs of the products we eventually order. While most people are okay with buying the standard version of an item, they need to take advantage of potential discounts.

Different options and sizes often come in various prices. This is true for nearly everything sold on the site, especially electronics and accessories. Click around, and you’ll find discounts.

We’re Impatient

Using Amazon and other shopping apps on our smartphones is so convenient. It’s almost second nature for us these days. Unfortunately, sometimes, we navigate too quickly through the app and purchase something without even knowing if it’s the best or most affordable version of that product.

Like many other things in life, our shopping experience will go much smoother if we all slow down. Amazon is an excellent place to shop for nearly anything, offering plenty of bargains. Sometimes, a little patience goes a long way.

We Ignore Amazon Warehouse

Do you know what Amazon Warehouse is? Many shoppers do not. Like any brick-and-mortar store, Amazon has an “outlet” that lets you save big on brand-name items and even purchase gently-used products at a fraction of the original price.

Although many men and women have a personal policy of never shopping for refurbished items, it’s very easy to find a great deal at Amazon Warehouse, especially when looking for electronics and similar big-ticket items. It’s worth checking out for sure.

We Don’t Read an Item’s Return Policy

Amazon has built its reputation on its shopper-friendly return policy, meaning that returning (and getting a full refund) is simple for most purchased items. In most cases, you must send your order back to Amazon directly, and they’ll take care of the rest.

However, many of us ignore the fine print. Not all products purchased on Amazon have the same terms for a potential return. Familiarize yourself with the return policy of everything you buy (especially from sellers you aren’t familiar with) to ensure you don’t find yourself at the mercy of a seller with an unfavorable return policy.