How I Shop on the Internet

More and more, we are relying on the internet for non-grocery purchases. We still look at items we need in local stores, but there are some great deals on the internet. You also have the advantage of reading reviews on products. That is something that has turned out to be very valuable.

Since I want to get the best deal possible on quality products, I developed a plan that has been successful so far (although I am always looking for ways to improve it!).

My first stop for shopping is always Amazon.com. It’s a great starting point to look at different brands and read the reviews. They have so many products. Once I find a product that is within our price point and of good quality, I note the make and model.

I enter that information into Google and look at other stores that are selling the same item. I compare the prices and note the shipping costs. Note: If you find the product on Amazon and it is being shipped by a third party company – also look at that company’s website. Sometimes the price is cheaper!

I don’t stop there, though. I take some of the best prices that I find and one at a time plug the company names into Google and add the word “coupons” after it. If you haven’t done that before, you will be amazed at how many coupon sites there are. I look through quite a few of the sites for the best coupon code deals. All coupon sites are not created equal.

The end result is hopefully some substantial savings. Of course, my way of internet shopping may not be the best way, so if you have a system that works and you want to share – feel free to do so! :)

Posted by Tricia on January 20, 2009 at 10:29 PM in Saving Money | 9 Comments »
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  1. Bryan - Frugal Logic responded:
    Posted: January 21st, 2009 at 5:38 am

    I also check on Amazon first, particularly for the reviews, these days there is so much choice it’s a great place to narrow your selection down.

    I will definitely try the coupons search from now on, that’s a great tip.

  2. Margaret responded:
    Posted: January 21st, 2009 at 7:11 am

    I know what you mean. At Christmas I wanted to buy my daughter a particular mobile phone. Cheapest shop price was £78.99. After searching the web I found the same phone for £24.99 and that included £10 credit on the phone. Now is that a deal or not. I was well chuffed.
    Margaret

  3. Ian responded:
    Posted: January 21st, 2009 at 10:16 am

    I am doing a lot of checking first on the internet. So many brick an mortar shops are struggling becasue you can generally find something online cheaper….less overhead.

    I have found some great “coupons” they can even be promo codes for websites that may give you a discount.

  4. Stupidcents responded:
    Posted: January 21st, 2009 at 11:20 am

    Check out PriceGrabber.com to compare prices with many online sites. I always go there before I make any purchase (along with the coupon search tip afterwards).

    I also check out eOpinions.com for reviews on products as I’ve been hearing stories how companies (cough…Belkin) are paying users to place positive reviews on Amazon.com’s site.

    Stupidly Yours,

    Matt

  5. Start-Up responded:
    Posted: January 21st, 2009 at 1:26 pm

    I do tons of online shopping. It’s convenient, saves time and gas money and you can find products significantly cheaper. There are numerous tricks for saving money by shopping online.

    There are websites that offer your cash back on your purchases. These sites are ebates, mr. rewards, cashbaq, fat wallet, microsoft live search and big crumbs. Some of them even offer a sign up bonus.

    It can be quite time consuming searching each of those sites for the best cash back offer for a particular store, but evrewards.com pools them all together so it’s easy to find the best deal.

    If you do enough searching/waiting, you can find great deals on anything you want. I use slickdeals.net to find the best deals. I’ve scored a ps3 for under $200 using slickdeals and a cash back site.

    I’ve done a review about each of these sites mentioned above at my blog.

    Happy shopping.

  6. Craig responded:
    Posted: January 21st, 2009 at 3:01 pm

    Like stupidcents mentioned, try pricegrabber. I have been buying more books online but used. That’s my way to save some money. Buying online is always going to be cheaper than in store and less of a hassle. That’s not even including gas and time spent.

  7. HappySlob Housecleaner responded:
    Posted: January 21st, 2009 at 11:00 pm

    Hey,
    I love searching for coupon codes – such as $20 off $100 at Sears, etc. Just do a basic search on Google using the term of the store, plus coupon code. For example: “Sears +coupon code.” I’ve saved a lot of money doing this!
    Take care,
    Christina

  8. A Girl responded:
    Posted: January 22nd, 2009 at 2:37 am

    You sure can save a lot of money if you do your research first!!

    I check online for many things as well rather than paying more to get it “today.” I sell on ebay so am glad that others like shopping online.

  9. Rob in Madrid responded:
    Posted: January 24th, 2009 at 4:27 am

    one of the nice things about living in Europe is I get to play small time price arbitrage. I buy most of my english books from Amazon Germany, it only costs 3€ shipping and I’ve had books sent from the US Australia New Zealand etc. Even with the shipping the books are usually cheaper than buying them locally.

    One pleasant surprise of the falling pound is things in the UK have gone from one of the more expensive places to shop to one of the cheapest.

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