Online shopping can be addictive and a real problem. But for a few clever people, it’s how they make their income. My journey into this world of Amazon rebates began by asking, How to get free stuff on Amazon?
It’s surprisingly easy to get free stuff on Amazon due to sellers competing to rank their products on the first page. Amazon sellers are willing to give away inventory to build up sales velocity which helps them rank.
Due to this demand, many platforms have been created to connect sellers and buyers for product giveaways. This post will cover how to get free stuff on Amazon so you don’t have to wait for the next Amazon sale.
A big part of getting out of debt is learning how to save money. But on the other hand, you still have to spend money on your credit cards to improve your credit. I found a way to do both while making a little bit of cash. As you know, to maintain a healthy credit score you need at least 1% debt of your total available credit limit. That just means you need to spend money every month. Now what you probably don’t know is that there is a website called Rebate Key which gives you up to 100% back on Amazon items new sellers are trying to promote. Let’s dig deeper.
For faster delivery, I recommend getting Amazon Prime when trying to get your free stuff on Amazon. Here’s a free 30-day Amazon trial link and it helps me out if you use it.
What is Rebate Key?
Rebate Key is a platform that connects sellers and buyers so you can get free stuff on Amazon. For sellers to show up on page one of your Amazon search results, they NEED a lot of sales. Even a few sales can bump them up from page 20 (which no one ever sees) to page 5. By giving away items (or discounted) on Rebate Key, sellers are able to gain sales velocity which improves their Amazon search results ranking. Rebate Key has sellers that list items on Walmart, Jet, eBay, Shopify, and Amazon. Although the majority of their listings are for Amazon.
There are actually many different platforms to get free amazon stuff for reviews, but that’s for a future post. I want to recommend Rebate Key because you make the purchase for the Amazon item with your credit card and get paid back 35 days later. It’s one of the best ways to manufacture spend online, but the idea here is that you generate credit card spend and cashback. That’s how you can meet credit card minimum spend requirements to get that sign-up bonus money.
Why 35 days?
Because Amazon’s return policy covers a 30-day window. The 35 days is to guarantee you don’t buy the item, get the rebate money, then submit the item for an Amazon refund. That’s pretty much stealing from the buyer.
Can I sell the item after I get it?
You’re not supposed to resell the purchased item. It’s part of Rebate Key’s terms of service and they will ban you if they find out you are reselling the purchased product. Now if you sold the item locally, on Facebook Marketplace or on Craigslist, there won’t really be a problem. The real issue is if you resell the item on Amazon. Please don’t do this because you can easily hurt that seller’s product sales.
How does reselling an item hurt the seller?
Reselling an item is the easiest way to hurt an Amazon seller because they can’t sell their product if you take over the Amazon buy box with a lower-priced listing. When you sell at a lower price than the seller, the seller can’t run ads on the Amazon listing. This makes it difficult to rank for keywords and for potential customers to the product. You can literally ruin a person’s Amazon selling business this way.
Remember, these Amazon sellers are people starting a small business. They aren’t a big company that can take a loss. I took a big loss selling on Amazon but learned a lot for it. So if you get any free items from Amazon, make sure to help them out with a review IF you like the product.
How did I find out about Rebate Key?
I used to sell products on Amazon. To gain momentum with sales, I had to give away products. I was completely burned by someone reselling my product because I wasn’t able to rank the item so people can see it. Just so I could start advertising my product, I had to BUY my own product back from the reseller. Buying the product isn’t easy, because the reseller will cancel my order. So I had to have someone else buy it for me. It is a pretty awful ordeal and I wish I had never tried selling anything on Amazon. That full story is for a future post.
How To Get Free Items on Amazon Using Rebate Key
Not all items are completely free on Rebate Key, a majority of them will have various discounts. It works like this:
- Sign up for Rebate Key
- Select any available item on the Rebate Key website you want to purchase (varies by discount up to 100%)
- Buy the product at full price (do not apply ANY discount codes) with your own money.
- Confirm your purchase on the Rebate Key website by sending them your Order ID
- Wait for seller approval (may take up to 5 days). Typically goes through, but in the event that it doesn’t you can always cancel or return the item for free with Amazon.
- After the purchase is approved, you will receive the designated rebate amount (up to 100% depending on the item) in 35 days.
What are the limits to getting free stuff on Amazon?
All things should be done in moderation. That’s why there is a daily 5 item purchase limit and a monthly 50 item limit when it comes to getting free stuff from Amazon. Getting more than 50 items per month from Amazon may start to raise red flags on your account. When you get free stuff from Amazon, your goal is to stay under the radar.
If you want to get more than 50 items a month, I recommend making another Amazon account and another Rebate Key account.
Do I need Amazon Prime to get free stuff?
Not necessarily. Just remember that if you don’t meet the “free shipping” threshold on Amazon, you will be required to pay for shipping. Amazon Prime does help out a lot if you are buying very affordable items. Plus, 2-day shipping is amazing. If you don’t already have Amazon Prime, you can get a free trial.
Amazon Prime Deals:
- Amazon Prime Free Trial
- Amazon Prime Free Student 6-Month Trial
- Amazon $5.99/month EBT/Medicaid discount
Do I need to do anything else?
If you like the free Amazon product you received, please leave a product review. You’re not obligated to leave a review, but it can significantly help the product seller a lot. When you leave a review, make it detailed and make sure to mention the product features without making it look spammy. Giving 5-star reviews for everything WILL endanger your Amazon profile and all your previous reviews will be removed.
To start the review game, begin by leaving reviews for products you’ve already purchased. The key to writing a good review is pointing out all the awesome parts and mentioning a minor flaw that still keeps the product in the 4-5 star range.
What kind of free stuff can I get from Rebate Key?
You definitely won’t find any name brand items on Rebate Key. Any established brand on Amazon already has a pretty good ranking, so they don’t need to give away products to improve their sales. All of these Amazon sellers are private labels that probably buy generic products at low costs from Alibaba. At least that’s my understanding.
There’s actually a lot of random items you can find on Rebate Key. If you know someone who constantly shops just to shop, you can help them by directing them to Rebate Key. They’ll get the satisfaction of shopping without having to spend the money. That’s an incredibly rare double-win.
For items that aren’t highly discounted, I’ve found that they are still not worth the price. Some sellers on Rebate Key increase the price just to make the discount look like it’s worth it. While at the same time, the items after discount is the same price as it’s competitors. Just be sure to shop wisely.
How can I make money from getting free items on Amazon?
Making money from buying free things on Amazon is surprisingly simple:
- Resell products locally: Try selling them on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. Just don’t sell them back on Amazon (see above)
- Cashback:
- Any time you make a purchase with Amazon, you can get 5% back with the Amazon Prime Rewards credit card. So if you spend $1,000 in getting free items, you’ll get back $50 (5%).
- You can also get 5% back with Discover (seasonally) and another 5% if it’s your first year with Discover (up to $1,500). That’s 10% back on up to $1,500 in spend = $150 in your pocket.
- Meeting Credit Card Sign Up Bonuses
- Many premium credit card sign up bonuses have terms like Spend $3,000 in 90 days and get a $500 bonus. To achieve that spend on your credit card without actually getting into debt, “buying” stuff for free on Amazon is the easiest way.
Each month, you won’t be making that much money in cashback, but it is money. The real value in getting items for free from Amazon is (1) the item and (2) the credit card spend. Since you need to have some debt on a credit card, this can provide a lot of value rather than “forcing” yourself to spend money going out.
Additionally, the credit card sign up bonuses can be SUPER LUCRATIVE. You do need to have good credit if you want to get those big $500 sign up bonuses, that’s why Sly Credit helps boost your credit score fast. Also, check out our helpful Financial Resources and Articles.
TLDR
You can make money getting stuff for free from Amazon by purchasing items through Rebate Key. Rebate Key is a platform that connects Amazon sellers to customers for discounted products. The “free Amazon item” has to be purchased at full price and then Rebate Key will provide the refund 35 days later. Rebate Key is the platform and the escrow service for the transaction.
To actually make money from the Amazon items you received, that’s done through product reselling (locally), credit card cash back, and if you need to achieve a credit card sign up bonus spend requirement (see: what is manufactured spending).
There are many other sites that provide free Amazon items in exchange for reviews, but those can be unreliable. I’ll cover that in a future post if you’re interested. Let me know at the Facebook page. That’s a super weird featured image, right? But if you’re reading this it got your attention. I’ll continue doing this.
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