How We Pick Deals

This page explains how we pick deals for the buying guides on Smart Pocket Deals. We compare products on Amazon UK and eBay UK, check the price and availability on the day we publish, and write that check date on the guide so you can see when the figures were last verified.

How we pick deals comes down to six honest checks, set out below. We read the official specifications and the customer feedback on the listing, we avoid claims we cannot stand behind, and we label advertising clearly. If you want a shorter introduction to the site, see our about us page.

The 6 honest checks behind how we pick deals

These are the six honest checks we use. They are not a secret scoring formula, and they are not a laboratory test. They are the practical steps we follow before a product goes into a guide.

• We look at products listed on Amazon UK and eBay UK, in pounds sterling, and we prefer clearly described models from well-known brands that are available to buy on the day we check.
• We check the live price and whether the item is in stock on the day we publish.
• We print that check date in the guide, usually as “Prices checked on [date] and may change.”
• We take key specifications from the retailer’s own listing, such as capacity, battery life, size or compatibility, and we describe who the item is for in plain English.
• We read customer feedback already on the listing to understand common praise and complaints. We do not invent star ratings, review counts or test scores.
• We do not use “save X%” or “was £X” claims, and a commission never decides that a product is the only option we may mention.

If we cannot complete those checks — for example if the product is not available from the usual seller, or the listing is too unclear — we drop it from the guide.

How we pick deals on Amazon UK and eBay UK

How we pick deals starts with the two shops our guides are written for: Amazon UK and eBay UK. We do not sell the items ourselves. A guide is a shortlist with context, not a shop window of every product in a category.

On eBay we pay particular attention to whether an item is new, who the seller is, and what postage will cost, because those details vary more than they do on a typical Amazon UK listing sold by Amazon.

How we check prices and availability

When we publish a guide, we check the live price and whether the item is in stock on that day. Retailers, not us, set the price, stock, delivery date and seller name, and all of those can move after we hit publish.

That is why every product section includes a link to the live listing. Please confirm the offer on the retailer’s own page before you buy, including the exact model, size or pack, who is selling it, and the delivery estimate.

How we read specifications and customer feedback

How we pick deals also depends on the information the retailer already publishes. We do not run a laboratory or claim to have personally trialled every product we mention. If a figure is not on the listing or cannot be checked, we leave it out rather than guess.

Customer feedback is useful for patterns — fit, build, battery life, noise, or missing accessories — but it is not a substitute for the live specifications or for your own judgement about whether the product suits you.

Claims we will not make

A central part of how we pick deals is what we refuse to say. “Save X%” and “was £X” comparisons are easy to inflate with a short-lived or rarely used reference price, and they can leave you worse informed, not better.

Instead, we show the price we saw on the check date and explain what you get for it. If a sale looks striking, we would rather tell you how to judge it — the live price, the seller, the exact pack and a second shop — than repeat a badge.

How we pick deals independently

Smart Pocket Deals is an affiliate site. Deal guides are marked #Ad. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, Smart Pocket Deals earns from qualifying purchases, and we take part in the eBay Partner Network. Our affiliate disclosure sets this out in full.

How we pick deals is not dictated by those commissions. A commission never changes the price you pay. It does not mean a product is the only sensible choice, or that we will ignore a better-known alternative. We choose what to feature. Affiliate advertising is meant to be obvious, which is why we follow the UK Advertising Standards Authority approach of labelling it clearly.

How we update our guides

Prices and stock move, especially around events such as Black Friday. When we return to a guide we repeat the same checks: live price, availability, and whether the product is still the right example for the topic. The check date in the article tells you when that last happened.

If a product is no longer a fair example — for instance if it is out of stock from the usual seller, or the listing has changed in a material way — we may replace or remove it in an update. Until then, treat the live retailer page as the current offer.

Your statutory rights when you buy from a UK trader are not reduced by a sale. The GOV.UK guide to consumer protection rights is a good starting point if something goes wrong.

Where to browse after you know how we pick deals

Once you know how we pick deals, these hubs are the quickest way into the current guides. The covers below are from those hubs and each one links through to the full page.

• Black Friday deals UK
• Christmas gift guide UK
• best tech gadgets UK
• home and kitchen guides UK
• beauty and fitness guides UK

You can also read about us or start from the homepage.

How we pick deals: frequently asked questions

Contact and legal information

Questions about how we pick deals, or about the site in general, can be sent via https://smartpocketdeals.com. This page lists only that website address.

See also our about us page, affiliate disclosure, privacy policy and cookie policy.