COOL SITE: Filleritem.com

As you probably know, Amazon offers free “Super Saver Shipping” on most purchases of $25 or more. But what do you do when the item you want is, say, $21.95? Do you bite the bullet and pay $4.95 for regular shipping? Or do you look for a $3.05 item to get you to $25?

If you’re the latter type of person, you might want to check out filleritem.com. It’s easy: just figure out how much you need to get to $25. Heck, if you’re bad at math, your Amazon shopping cart will helpfully tell you how much you need:

Then go to filleritem and enter that amount:

The site will then give you a list of items around that price. The results page will be plain HTML, with popular items listed in bold face and really popular items in boldface with a thumbnail of the product. Just click any link to go to the Amazon page in question, then add it to your cart and get your free shipping!

I’ve known about filleritem.com for a couple of years now, but only used it for the first time last week. I have a beach trip coming up somewhat soon, and both of my pairs of flip-flops are on their way out. I’ve long heard that Havaianas sandals are the best in the world, so I went to Amazon to see what they had. I found a pair I liked, but they were $21.27. Shipping was $4.98, for a grand total of $26.25.

I went over to filleritem and looked for a $3.73 item to add to my cart. It was kind of fun looking at all the random stuff you can buy at Amazon for $3.73: really awful CDs and DVDs, odd spare parts for aquariums, and weird bits and bobs from the hardware department. It took around 15 minutes and a couple of searches, but I ended up ordering an 8″ micro USB cable. I have one of those external “battery pack” chargers that I mostly use for my phone. The regular 36″ USB cable that came with the phone is a bit much to carry around… but the 2″ cable included with the charger is too short, and includes various (easily lost) adapter tips for multiple devices. The 8″ cable seems like a nice compromise. It was only $3.95, making my total for the order $25.22, a savings of $1.76 over buying just the sandals with standard shipping. It’s not the “Deal of the Century” by any means, but I saved almost $2 and got a USB cable out of it, versus paying $2 more for… well, nothing, really.

The only downside to filleritem is that if you’re in a hurry, it’s not the site for you. The results page(s) give you the name of the item only, with no context. If you can figure out what Sue Devitt Silky Sheen E/S – Prague or Fart Bombs are just from their names, good for you. But if not you’re going to have to click the link to figure out what the item is. And some items – like Dorman HELP! 85568 T-Tap 16-14 – have no additional information on Amazon’s site, either. I went to the page but still have NO IDEA what a “Dorman HELP! 85568 T-Tap 16-14” is! Do you?