How price history works, and how to use it to buy at the right time
A price history chart is the single best way to tell whether a deal is really a deal. It shows what an item has actually sold for over time, so you can see past the "was" price and the sale badge.
What a price tracker does
Price tracking sites check a product's price at a retailer at regular intervals and store the results. Plot those results on a chart and you get the price history: a line that shows every rise and fall over weeks, months or years.
Popular tools for UK shoppers include:
- PriceSpy (pricespy.co.uk), which compares prices across many UK retailers and shows price history.
- Keepa and CamelCamelCamel, which track prices on Amazon, including amazon.co.uk.
- Price comparison sites such as PriceRunner, which also show price trends for many products.
Most of these let you set a price alert, so you get an email when the price drops below a figure you choose.
How to read the chart
Look for three things:
- The typical price. Where does the line sit most of the time? That is the price you should compare a deal against, not the highest point.
- The lowest price in the last 90 days. If today's price is at or near that low, it is probably a good time to buy. If it is well above it, wait.
- Spikes just before a sale. If the price jumped up a few weeks before a big sale and then "dropped" back to normal, the saving is not real.
Watch the seller, not just the price
On marketplaces such as Amazon, the same product can be sold by the retailer itself or by third-party sellers. Price trackers often show these separately. A low price from a little-known third-party seller may come with slower delivery, different returns terms or even a different version of the product.
When a "deal" really is a deal
A genuine deal is usually one or more of:
- at or below the lowest price of the last 3 months,
- clearly cheaper than other major UK retailers on the same day,
- on an exact model number that matches the reviews you read.
How Price Pylon uses price history
Before we post a deal we check the price on the retailer's own page and record the date. We show the retailer's stated usual price so you can see the claimed saving, and we encourage you to check a price history tool before buying anything expensive. If you spot a deal on our site that is not as good as it looks, please tell us.
Read next: how to spot a fake discount in the UK.