What is Amazon Assistant?

Shopping on the internet can be a pain. Thanks to the rapid proliferation of online retail over the past decade, buying things online is easier than ever. A ton of comparison shopping sites have popped up, most notably Google Shopping. On the other hand, many people don’t want to go through the hassle of signing up at multiple sites and sharing their credit card information with them just to save a few bucks.

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But among online marketplaces, Amazon leads the pack, especially when you’re looking for deals on tech like cheap budget phones. Amazon Assistant is a tool for comparing online prices with Amazon’s prices, so you can determine if it’s worth the grief of signing up for a new account to save some money.

How does the Amazon Assistant extension work?

Amazon Assistant is a browser extension you install on your web browser. It works on Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera (sorry, Apple Safari gang). It works on any operating system that supports these web browsers. When you go to a product page on a site other than Amazon, Assistant displays a pop-up showing the product, a link to its Amazon page, its Amazon rating, Amazon’s price, and a button to add it to your cart.

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If you’re not interested in Amazon’s price, close the pop-up by clicking the × in the upper-right corner. Next to that, there’s a button for minimizing the window so that it’s out of the way while you’re browsing. The window collapses so that only the title bar shows, and it moves to the lower-right corner of the window.

In addition to giving individual product price comparisons, Amazon Assistant also does its best to guess what you’re shopping for on a competitor’s site and show you what Amazon offers. It seems to accomplish this by spying on what you’ve put in the search bar. Clicking through categories on AliExpress or eBay won’t trigger Assistant, but using the search bar (to search for the best smartwatches, perhaps) to find what you want will. Even though Amazon is good about figuring out what you’re looking for, clicking through to a product on either of these sites won’t trigger the comparison window.

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Put it on your list

Clicking the icon for the Assistant extension from your browser’s toolbar opens a drop-down menu that has an Amazon search bar, links to deals and recommendations, as well as your orders and lists.

The Amazon Assistant extension even lets you add items to your Amazon wish lists from outside vendors, so it’s not just limited to Amazon products.

1. Open a browser window and head to the page for the product you want to add to your list.
2. Click the Assistant icon.
3. Click the Add to list icon in the upper-left corner. This opens another window where you can customize how the item looks in your wish list.
4. To finish, click Add to list in the lower-right corner.

If you use Amazon in more than one country, you can still use Assistant.

1. Click the Assistant icon.
2. Select the three-line menu in the upper-left corner.
3. Click Settings.
4. Select Change country/region.
5. Change which Amazon site you use to compare prices.

Is there a catch?

You need an Amazon account to take advantage of this free extension, but you don’t have to be an Amazon Prime member. You also have to be okay with sharing your usage data with Amazon. Some concerns have been voiced about what the extension can and can’t do, not only with your data but with what displays on the web pages you’re browsing.

If you don’t like the pop-up notifications, turn them off in the settings menu and use the features in the extension drop-down menu. Doing that means you won’t have access to the product matches from Amazon, so it’s a trade-off.

Even though Amazon Assistant has some cool features, its product comparisons are not always accurate. I’ve had two products from GameStop link me to the same $75 book on writing product descriptions. It could be that GameStop doesn’t like Amazon poaching its sales, but it’s impossible to say for sure.

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Amazon Assistant isn’t Alexa, but you can still find some good deals

Is Amazon Assistant worth it? That depends on how much you shop on Amazon and how worried you are about how Amazon uses your browsing data. If you only use Amazon a few times a year, it’s probably not worth the hassle. However, if you do most of your shopping online and use Amazon, you’ll want to give it a shot. If you don’t like the Amazon Assistant Extension, it’s easy to uninstall. If you’re a hardcore Amazon User, you may want to invest in an Echo to take advantage of secret Alexa-only deals.