I forget where I saw the link. I think I clicked through something from Twitter and fell into the rabbit hole of the internet. But it ended up being a good thing, because I found this new service called Paribus.
What it is and how it works
How Paribus works
Paribus is a service that monitors price changes for you at 18 (so far) popular merchants. If there’s a price drop, Paribus submits a price adjustment claim on your behalf. And the merchants included are some good ones:
- Athleta
- Banana Republic
- Best Buy
- Bloomingdale’s
- Bonobos
- Gap
- J.Crew
- Macy’s
- Newegg.com
- Nordstrom
- Old Navy
- Piperlime
- Sephora
- Staples
- Target
- Walmart
- Zappos.com
To get started, you can sign up for free. You connect the email account where you get your receipts. It monitors your inbox for receipts and keeps a log of your purchases.
All my Amazon purchases
If there’s a price change on anything you bought, they ask for an adjustment for you. The service is free to use. You link a credit or debit card to your account and they’ll issue the refund in the form of a statement credit (they use Stripe as a payment processor).
This can be easy – and maybe unexpected – money coming your way.
The fact that it’s free to sign up makes it a no-brainer. And I must say I’m impressed with the merchants they are starting with.
I could see this being super useful around the holidays when so many prices are being slashed left and right for Black Friday shoppers.
Keep in mind that Paribus still has to follow the price adjustment rules of each individual merchant.
The CamelCamelCamel angle
CamelCamelCamel is a website that tracks items for sale on Amazon.com. They keep records of historically low prices for everything. So you plug in the item you have your eye on and it tells whether or not the price might drop based on previous trends.
If you buy your things from Amazon while they’re at their lowest, you won’t have to even utilize Paribus. You’d simply save the money upfront, which is always good too. But even if the price of something you bought drops even more, Paribus would be there to get a price adjustment for you.
I can see these 2 services being super useful for savvy web online shoppers when used in conjunction with one another.
Bottom line
Thought I’d share what I learned about Paribus. It’s free and easy to sign up, so you really have nothing to lose.
Does anyone else already use Paribus or CamelCamelCamel to track prices and shop? Would love to hear thoughts about either service as I am still new to both. And of course any others that are super handy slash in the same vein as these. Let me know in the comments below!
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So I need to give them full access to my email? I would be highly hesitant to do that.
It works the exact same as TripIt. Some people use a separate email for online shopping. As always, do what you are comfortable with.
I have the same concern as Ricardo…don’t want to give an unknown developer full access to my gmail (read, delete, etc.)
I would be OK with forwarding them my relevant purchase confirmations, but then my value to them would be diminished so I can understand why they want the whole enchilada.
I don’t think they delete anything in your inbox. Really just like TripIt if you’re familiar with their service.
PriceZombie does price history tracking and price protection tracking (in store and for credit cards), all without needing access to your email account.
Also while Camel is limited to Amazon, PriceZombie supports over 60 stores.
Cooool! Thanks for that tip!
I actually just got my first automatic price adjustment claim from Paribus today with zero effort on my part. But this is a good solution for those worried about the email thing.
I have a separate email that I use for newsletters and online shopping so there’s really nothing in there of any substance. That might be a good workaround too.
Thanks again – I will check that out a little more right now!
Does Paribus allow you to have more than one email account on your account? Or do you need to register each email account separately?
Blast from the past! You’d need to register each one separately.