20 Tips Every Amazon Addict Should Know

Shopping for yourself doesn't mean you can't also give a little. The AmazonSmile program makes that easy. Just always, always, always visit the site by going to http://smile.amazon.com.

Set it up in your bookmarks/favorites, and use the AmazonSmile 1Button for Chrome or Smile Redirect for Firefox browser add-ons to get reminded/forced to use Smile when you go to Amazon. Then, pick a charity—over a million 501(c)(3) public organizations are in the list—and when you buy eligible products, 0.5 percent of the purchase price will go toward your favorite charity. You don't get any tax benefit, but you still get what you purchased. Charities should visit org.amazon.com to register.

Amazon wants you to "showroom" the world, giving it a chance to out-price the competition. There's no better example of it making this easy for you than its technology Flow. It's still available as separate apps on iOS and Android, but you don't need them—Flow is built into the Amazon mobile apps: just hit the camera icon. Flow performs image recognition so you can just turn the phone's camera toward a product; if Amazon has a match, it'll find it. The software isn't perfect at identifying all products, but you know Amazon will work hard on it, even if it's just to sell you something remotely similar.

Amazon's Fire tablets run a version of Android called Fire OS, and thus have their own Android app store. Just about anyone with an Android device can access it. Use the browser on your Android device to visit amazon.com/appstore, and in the top menu click "Get Started." Follow the instructions—make sure your device settings allow "Unknown sources" for installing apps (more here)—then directly download and install the store app.

If you're paying for Amazon Prime—and you should be, since it's only $99 a year or $10.99 a month and provides instant streaming video, free music, and free two-day shipping on a majority of Amazon merchandise—you don't have to go it alone. The cost of that Prime account can be shared with one other adult member of your household, plus up to four kids under the roof who don't even need Amazon accounts. (It used to be you could share full Prime with multiple family members, but Amazon cracked down on that.) This is a smart way to keep the holiday shopping secrets, yet still get all the two-day shipping savings.

Amazon Prime sharing includes Amazon Video with all the linked members, not to mention Prime Early Access, and the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. The adults get access to the Amazon FreeTime parental controls to make sure kids don't get into anything they shouldn't.

To set it up, go to Manage Your Content and Devices > Settings tab > Households and Family Library > Invite an Adult. You'll need their email address as used on Amazon, and it will require you two adults to share credit or debit card information. This is also where you can add the kids.

If your most beloved family-member-turned-Amazon-addict isn't part of the immediate household, you can give Prime as a gift in one-year ($99) or three-month ($33) increments to anyone with an email address. The gift membership comes with all the benefits—two-day shipping, streaming video and music, borrowing books on Kindle, etc. And if the person is already a Prime member, they can exchange the fee you paid for an Amazon Gift Card code.

A money-saving game to play: Amazon Prime comes with a free one-month trial. Use it during the holidays to get free shipping when you do the most shopping, then cancel before you're charged (you'll have to wait a year before you can do it again).

Better yet, be a student. With Prime Student, you get Prime for free for six months, and a half-price discount thereafter (only $50 per year). You also get $10 for every other student you talk into joining.

Adults who are already Prime members but become parents can sign up for Amazon Family (once called Amazon Mom). There is no specific major savings on the price of Prime this way, but parents get exclusives, such as 20 percent off diaper subscriptions.

Because Prime offers such great shipping deals, you sometimes may order an item from Amazon that is actually too expensive, just to get it faster.

What happens to all those products that inevitably get returned to Amazon? Those gems that are no longer "new," but good enough? They are typically found in the Amazon Warehouse Deals site, where you'll find "deep discounts on open-box, like-new, and pre-owned products."

Best of all, they are typically still eligible for Amazon Prime shipping, and if you don't like an item, you can still return it. Similarly, you can find deals at the almost hidden Amazon Outlet store.

Amazon's best deals for new products are found in the "Today's Deals" link on the top of any Amazon page. The section has a Deal of the Day, and time-limited Lightning Deals (where you only get hours or just minutes to snag a product on sale). There isn't always a lot of notice, but if you use the Amazon apps on your phone, you can go to the hamburger menu and select Today's Deals to see the deals on the go.

In certain cities—now over 5,000 of them!—you can get same-day delivery of select items. Prime members in those areas receive free same-delivery on qualifying orders over $35. Order by noon and your package will be delivered by 9 p.m., seven days a week. Order in the afternoon or evening, and get free one-day delivery. See if your city is included here.

You usually think of a subscription for something entertaining, like a magazine, or for streaming video services, where you get new and different things. With Amazon's Subscribe & Save program, you get new things all the time. They're the same items over and over, but ones you always need: detergent, cat litter, dog food, razor blades, toilet paper...or Cheetos.

Save as much as 15 percent off products that fit the bill if you subscribe to five or more per month. You can cancel whenever you want; there's no year-long commitment that will force you to get, say, the same size diapers for a year. Wonder if it would work for you? Check out the page of every item eligible.

If you don't want to bother whipping out your phone or laptop to re-order often-used products, there's also the Amazon Dash button, or you can ask Alexa to re-order stuff if you've got an Amazon Echo product.

Amazon has a lot of cards that make it worth your while to shop. The Amazon Store Card is for shopping only at Amazon, but gives you special rates like no-interest six-month financing on orders of $149 and above, no-interest 12-month financing on orders of $599 and above, and no-interest 24-month financing on select items. Plus, Prime members get 5 percent back when they buy eligible Prime-only items.

The Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card from Chase can be used anywhere, and collects points. And if you're a Prime member, you get 5 points per dollar spent on Amazon, 2 per dollar at restaurants, drugstores, and gas stations; and 1 per dollar on all other purchases. (If you're not a Prime member, you can still get the card, but get 3 points for every dollar purchased at Amazon instead.) One hundred points earns you one dollar to spend on Amazon. However, since a "purchase" on Amazon made with points doesn't earn you even more points, the best practice is to redeem it for gift cards or as cash back via Chase. Points won't work for items digital downloads and some subscription and grocery items.

You can also link other credit cards—like American Express, Citi, and more—to your Amazon account and Shop With Points.

If you're a Prime member and frequent Amazon shopper, consider Amazon Prime Reload. Add funds to an Amazon.com Gift Card Balance using a checking account and get 2 percent back—up to $196 per day—on every purchase made using those funds.

Amazon announced this in mid-June and said it's a "limited time offer," so take advantage of it while you can. Also, take note: the amount you reload to your Amazon Balance is nonrefundable or redeemable for cash.

"Add-ons" are additional items Amazon sells that are very inexpensive—generally under $5—but they're so small that Amazon only ships them with other orders of $25 or more. If your cart is less than $25 at checkout, Amazon will save add-on items for your next purchase of $25 or more.

You can get around this by pre-ordering things that aren't available yet and then canceling the pre-order later. Or use Alexa—if you have Voice Purchasing enabled, ask Alexa to order that specific product, and the single item order should be placed. It's a douche-move and Amazon could put the kibosh on this workaround at any moment, but there you go.

When you order things using Amazon Prime, you expect that two-day shipping to be guaranteed. And it's even more important to get the one-day shipping if you pay extra for it. Check to make sure there actually is a green "Guaranteed delivery" date on the item at checkout. If not, well, you get it when you get it.

If it's guaranteed and still doesn't arrive on the right date by 8 p.m., you can sometimes get a refund on shipping. Or even a one-month extension on your Amazon Prime account, if the order meets all the criteria. This works for Amazon Family, but not for Amazon Student, and can only happen a max of 12 times a year (or once during your Prime free trial).

There's no lack of places to trade in old tech like phones and tablets. Amazon has a trade-in program as well, and it can be used to get money to spend—on more stuff at Amazon, naturally (you get an Amazon code, not cash). The original product didn't have to come from Amazon to be eligible. Trade-in item categories include phones, cameras, laptops, tablets, wearables, books and textbooks, video games, DVDs and Blu-rays, CDs, even MP3 players, and a lot of others.

Every once and a while, a package you order may get ripped off in transit (or right from your porch). You may not be completely S.O.L. There are numerous reports from customers across the Web that if you make a plea to Amazon Customer Service, they may replace it, free!

Obviously, it has to be sold direct from Amazon, you'll need tracking numbers and other info, and this isn't going to work more than once (maybe twice). That's because Amazon will certainly track who it does this for, and it's not dumb. But should an important item go missing, it's worth a shot. Then, you need to upgrade your delivery security—at the very least, make sure USPS, UPS, and Fedex require a signature to make a delivery. If you've got a location near you with one, try the Amazon Locker, pictured above, for your pick up (and returns).

Amazon has an ongoing and constant set of coupon offers you can use on the site at its Coupons page. Go in and clip any and all you might want to use; they're mostly all household goods but you can search under categories like Electronics, Toys, and Jewelry for other things. The savings of around 10 to 15 percent will automatically be applied when you make the purchase. If you don't make the purchase, no big deal, the coupon just doesn't get used and eventually it'll expire. Offers.com has a great run down of new and expiring Amazon promo codes you can check out.

Offers.com features a rundown of new and expiring Amazon promo codes you can check out. Check here for deals related to the upcoming Prime Day.

(Disclosure: Offers.com is owned by PCMag's parent company, Ziff Davis.)

Amazon's not going to go out of its way to let you know when a product you love is super cheap (though if you check your Wish List a lot, it does tell you how much the price has dropped since you added it.) Luckily, there are plenty of third-party options to track prices.

OnlinePriceAlert will email you whenever a product you want at a certain price hits that threshold. Even better is the uniquely named CamelCamelCamel, which tracks tons of products and provides info via email and Twitter. You can also set it up using browser add-on tool Camelizer. And Honey is another service with a browser add-on that shows you deals on Amazon before you buy—right in the Amazon window.