How to Get Stuff for Free on Amazon.com

Amazon.com is arguably the most popular store on the Internet. Every year, countless people shop at this mammoth institution for practically anything you could possibly imagine such as movies, books, music, groceries, furniture, and more. However, not everyone realizes that there are actually a variety of completely legitimate ways to buy items on Amazon for free. The following are a handful of methods for earning Amazon gift cards that you can use to buy anything that your heart desires—as long as it’s on the site, that is.

Become an Amazon associate. Amazon Associates is an affiliate program that allows you to sell Amazon items through your own website. Whenever a visitor to your site purchases an item on Amazon by clicking on one of your links, you receive a small percentage of the purchase price from Amazon. This starts at a base of 4% but can eventually rise if the volume of clicks made via your site starts to increase. When you reach a minimum of $10 over the course of a month, you will be paid 2 months later either via direct deposit into your back account or in the form of Amazon gift cards. Whenever you don’t reach the minimum threshold, whatever you earned simply carries over to the next month. Becoming an associate is a great way to get some free stuff from Amazon without having to put in a lot of time or effort.

Join Swagbucks. Swagbucks.com is a site that basically rewards you for searching the Internet, filling out surveys, and doing various tasks. Members use the Swagbucks site as their search engine and earn points for each site they visit. Once they reach a certain number of points, these points can be redeemed for a number of prizes, one of the most popular being Amazon gift cards. The best thing about Swagbucks is that, if you are a regular web surfer, you are basically getting free Amazon merchandise in exchange for doing the same thing you do in your free time anyway. You can also earn additional points by entering various contests the site holds regularly and for referring new people.

Trade-in items for store credit. Not everyone knows about Amazon’s Trade-In program, but it’s pretty fantastic. Amazon will now buy DVDs, Blu-ray discs, electronics, and video games from you in exchange for free gift cards. Each item is worth a different price, depending on how popular or rare it is and how many copies they currently have in stock. They might also give you more credit depending on the condition of the item. For example, a used DVD in good condition likely won’t bring in as much as one in “Like New” condition, and neither will bring in as much as a DVD in its original packaging.

If you are looking to downsize or de-clutter your large movie or video game collection and/or if you have some old electronics you no longer need, the Trade-In program is a great way to get rid of stuff and to get compensation in the form of new items. Because Amazon generally doesn’t pay you as much as you originally paid for the item (except in the case of a rare item), you won’t be bringing back into the house as much as you sent away.

Entertainment Weekly’s Front Row. The popular magazine, Entertainment Weekly, has a special online fan club called Front Row. Among the various perks to joining Front Row is the ability to take part in online surveys that help shape what the magazine will feature in the future. Entertainment Weekly often enters the people who complete the surveys into contests to win Amazon gift cards. This is a fun way for readers to have a voice in the content that a prominent pop culture magazine produces, as well as an opportunity to win free money to spend at Amazon.

There are many sites on the Internet that offer free Amazon gift cards, but be careful to do your research before participating in them. Many of the survey sites are actually scams that don’t ever pay the people what they promise in exchange for filling out the surveys, and many others simply exist to install malware onto your computer. All of the methods listed above, however, are tried and true, entirely legitimate methods of getting free Amazon.com gift cards—many of them run by Amazon itself. Why not supplement your entertainment budget with one or more of these relatively passive means of getting some Amazon swag with very little hassle?