Retail

There's a loophole that lets you spend less than $25 to order Add-on Items from Amazon

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Pens add-on item on Amazon
Add-on Items that you can order on Amazon.  Jacob Shamsian/INSIDER

Amazon's Add-on program is incredibly useful, but it can also be a pain.

Add-on Items are cheap products that the company deems "cost-prohibitive to ship on their own." Many of them are everyday household items — like toothpaste or pens — that could save you a trip to your local convenience store.

But there's a catch: Amazon has a $25 minimum-order requirement, and that's not including the Add-ons.

Luckily, there's a loophole that lets you get around the $25 restriction. Here's how it works:

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company, Bezos Expeditions.

Choose your Add-on Items and add them to your cart. I needed some toothpaste.

Add on item toothpaste skitch
Jacob Shamsian/INSIDER

Then add a preorder item to your cart. Here I am ordering "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child."

Pre-order Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Jacob Shamsian/INSIDER

If your total order is over $25, then Amazon will let you make the purchase!

Add-on item order on Amazon, skitched
Jacob Shamsian/INSIDER

The trick is to buy a preorder item along with the Add-on Items you want. Amazon will let you complete the purchase, and Add-on Items will ship normally, while the preorder item will be shipped whenever it's released.

If you don't want the preorder item, then you can just cancel the order at any time before it ships.

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Jacob Shamsian
Jacob Shamsian is a correspondent on Business Insider's Enterprise news desk. He is also a Global Reporter for Axel Springer.He was previously on BI's Legal Affairs desk, covering major litigation, courtroom trials, and the legal industry.Jacob has reported on the criminal trials of Donald TrumpGhislaine Maxwell, Sam Bankman-Fried, Sean "Diddy" CombsR. Kelly, and Anna Sorokin (AKA Anna Delvey), He's also covered blockbuster civil trials, including both E. Jean Carroll v. Trump trials, the New York Attorney General's fraud trial against TrumpSarah Palin v. The New York Times, and Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard.His stories have been cited in judicial rulings, lawsuits, letters from congressional committees, and in numerous media publications. He was a pool reporter in Donald Trump's Manhattan criminal trial.Jacob has been interviewed on CNN, the docuseries "Surviving R. Kelly," ABC's "Good Morning America," and BBC News, among other programs. His work has been cited by media outlets, including The New York Times, Bloomberg News, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and New York magazine. He's also written for GQ, The Awl, The New Republic, Entertainment Weekly, Time, and Modern Farmer.You can reach Jacob on Signal at JacobShamsian.07.