The holiday shopping countdown is on. Here are pitfalls to avoid

The holiday shopping clock is ticking - with just over two weeks left until Christmas.

But data shows retailers have made it pretty tricky to find the top bargains. NBC 5 Responds is sharing how you can avoid fake sales and well-disguised ads to find the best deals.

Year after year, data shows roughly 9 out of 10 holiday shoppers turn to Amazon for their holiday shopping. Yet this year, your search results on Amazon may look a little bit different.

“For some of the things we searched for…18 out of the 25 first items were ads,” said Kevin Brasler with Consumers Checkbook.

Brasler said, according to their research, Amazon has steadily increased the number of ads that come up when you search for a product. You may not always realize someone paid for their products to show up in your search, he said.

“What Amazon does do when it shows you an ad, is it in very light gray type says ‘sponsored.' And the problem is, often it groups five items together with a really gray fine border and up in the corner says all those items are sponsored,” Brasler explained.

But Brasler pointed out - the ads, while annoying to many consumers, are still relevant.

“I will say, in all fairness, it's in all fairness, Amazon and its search results, they were all relevant to what we were searching for,” he stated.

In a statement, Amazon told NBC 5 Responds: “Our store is designed to help customers find and discover products we think may best meet their needs, including great brands and products they may not yet know about. Relevant ads are one of the many ways we do this. We are dedicated to providing customers with a world class shopping experience, and we work hard every day to ensure the search results they see are useful, informative, and help make shopping a little bit easier.”

Brasler said retailers are also relying on fake sales to drum up business this season.

“I'd say these days, any claims by retailers, even if they say it's 60% off, it's probably bogus,” he said.

So be on the lookout for things like countdown clocks that add a time constraint on your purchase or double-digit discounts that seem too good to be true.

“What they do is they show you a list price or a regular price, they cross it out, and then they put a lower price next to it and say it's a special price. The problem is most retailers now just run continuous sales that list a regular price. They either rarely actually sell the item for that [regular] price,” said Brasler.

Finally, we asked Brasler about popular cashback shopping apps - like Rakuten - which promise up to 30% cashback if you make your purchases through their website.

“These cash back sites like Rakuten and others, it's a nice way to stack savings because what you do is you use their portal, search, search for items and buy them on their affiliated website," he said.

But NBC 5 Responds found a potential downside for chasing savings on cashback apps.

On its website, Rakuten said it collects data from you - like your "payment account number" and "billing address" in addition to your "age" and "gender."

While Rakuten claims it doesn’t sell your personal information, the company said it may "use your information to advertise to you online, including targeting advertising to you on other websites."

Here are a few key takeaways:

• To get better, non-sponsored search results on Amazon, use their filters and be as specific as possible about what you’re looking for.
• Keep in mind: some sought-after gifts - like Apple or Nintendo products - only go on sale once or twice a year with the manufacturer’s approval. Sometimes that "‘sale" is just a gift card you get with your full price purchase. So keep your expectations in check.
• Before you make any big ticket purchase, do a quick internet search to see what other retailers are selling the item for. You could see a pretty big price difference across sites. But always make sure you’re buying from a reputable site you’ve used before, especially if you’re dropping a lot of cash.