Buying in Bulk at Amazon.com - saving on household items

Like many of you, I got introduced to amazon.com as a retailer of books. Good prices, free shipping, customer reviews were all part of their allure. Over time they grew into a mega-site, selling all sorts of things you couldn't imagine. A couple of years ago, I decided on a lark to see if they sell soap -- sure enough they did, and it led me to a real nice deal.

Our preferred brand of soap was Irish Spring with the Aloe scent. It wasn't always easy to find that scent, as stores often carried just the original Irish Spring. When we did find it, the price could be in the $2 for a 3-pack range, though sometimes we'd see it on sale for $1.49 for a 3-pack.

One time after not finding it at the supermarket I typed Irish Spring Aloe Vera into the amazon search, and it showed that they did sell it and showed it then at a price of $1.00/3-pack! A nice deal but to make it work it would take free shipping (otherwise the shipping costs would wipe out the lower price). Soap is one of those staple items we'll always need and which doesn't go bad. So what would be the problem with ordering $25 of soap to get the savings? So that's what I did, and a few days later we had a package with 75 bars of soap that would last for quite a while.

The funny thing was that not long afterwards, a friend informed me that soap is actually better if the package isn't opened for a year (something about it getting more dense). Little did she know that I had enough to probably last for two if not three years. All thanks to amazon.com... the savings along with convenience of not having to keep our eyes out for it at the stores and look for sale prices.