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16 incredibly useful Amazon products and services you didn't know existed

16 incredibly useful Amazon products and services you didn't know existed

Looking for replacement car parts? Amazon "Garage" lets you store your car's make and model to make it easy to only search accessories that will actually work with your vehicle.

Amazon also wants to help you unclog your toilet and mow your lawn. "Home Services" makes it easy to book pre-vetted professionals whenever you need them.

Right now, Amazon says select services are available in 30 different cities. Browse what's available, where, here.

You can buy your cable package, TV, and phone service on Amazon too. The site sells packages from Comcast in a format that's more straightforward than from the provider's own site.

Find the "Cable Store" here.

Last fall, Amazon launched an Etsy competitor called "Handmade" to help people find products handcrafted by artisans.

So, if you're craving a leather-bedecked skateboard for nearly $300 or bespoke bridesmaid cards, you can now find 'em in Homemade.

Browse the selection here.

You can also support startups through "Launchpad," Amazon's designated section for fledgling products.

Learn more about how it got started and check out what's for sale here.

If you get invited to become an Amazon Vine reviewer, you'll get free stuff from companies to review.

Vine is Amazon's invitation-only club for a small percentage of elite reviewers. Every month, Amazon sends selected Vine reviewers a list of products. Each person can select two products to review at a time, and they can keep those items as long as they provide a review within 30 days. Amazon insists that reviews don't have to be positive.

Learn more about Amazon Vine.

You can use Amazon's Mechanical Turk to crowd-source "human intelligence tasks" — like identifying photos — to people all over the world.

Mechanical Turk basically gives users access to an on-demand workforce, and it gives people who want to make a little extra money a way to find quick-and-easy online labor. Here's some examples from the site: you can get paid $0.04 per picture to find images of specified real estate agents or $0.02 to copy text from a picture of a business card.

Skim through some tasks.

If you're a teacher, you can check out the newly launched Amazon Inspire for a bunch of educational resources.

Or, if you're a student and an Amazon Prime member, you can get a discount on student loans from Wells Fargo.

People who pay Amazon's Prime fee ($49 for students) are eligible for a 0.50% discount on Wells Fargo-issued loans. Prime members are also eligible for an additional 0.25% discount for enrolling in automatic monthly repayments.

Learn more about it here.

If you own a business, you can get discounts on bulk supplies, whether you work in IT or as a janitor.

You can get a book published in Amazon's Kindle store less than 24 hours after submitting it through Kindle Direct Publishing.

If you live in a city, there's a good chance you can use Amazon Locker to get your packages dropped off at secure location while you're at work.

For people who work all day and don't want to get personal packages delivered to the office, yet can never make it to the post office before it closes, Locker is a godsend.

Lockers are often in 24-hour facilities — like 7-Elevens — and when you go to pick up your package you just have to enter a code that was texted or emailed to you to get it.

Check out Amazon Locker.

Shop with Amazon Smile and the company will donate a percentage of your total order to a charity of your choice at no extra cost to you.

If you spot an Amazon link on Twitter, you can add the product to your shopping cart by replying with the hashtag "#AmazonCart."

Amazon Prime accounts cost $99, but you won't have to buy your own if you have a friend who feels like sharing. From Amazon.com, navigate to Your Account > Manage your Prime account, where you can then invite up to five people who will be able to share the shipping benefits (though not the access to Instant Video). Those invited will have to enter the Prime account holder's birthday to confirm that they know them.

Buy something all the time? You can subscribe to get it on a regular basis.

Amazon lets you subscribe to certain items you'll need to buy over and over, like toothpaste, toilet paper, or dog food. In exchange for agreeing to buy an item on a continuous schedule, you'll get a little discount.

If an item is available for subscription, you'll see the option when you go to check out. You personalize how often you'd like the item delivered, and Amazon will email you before shipping the item so you can delay it if you're using a product slower than expected.

If you don't care about buying something new, you can also search specifically for refurbished goods.

The Warehouse Deals category on Amazon offers deep discounts on open-box, refurbished, and used products that are in good condition, but not technically "new." For example, you might get a returned laptop for 15% off.