› Budget101 Discussion List Archives › Budget101 Discussion List › Amazing Holiday Deals Online
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September 4, 2009 at 8:18 pm #275901
rtebalt
If the financial crisis and economic downturn have you pinching pennies this holiday season, we’re here to help you find gifts for everyone on your list — at bargain prices.
Keeping your holiday spending under control is easy thanks to an array of Web sites with the sole purpose of helping you find bargains. There are sites that post the latest deals on everything from clothes to electronics, sites that give you cash back when you shop, sites that provide coupon codes and sites that help you compare prices. You need to act quick, though, because December 18 is the last free-shipping day by which most online retailers can guarantee delivery by Christmas.
Even if you don’t end up buying online, it never hurts to find the best deals on the Web before you brave crowded stores. Then you can comparison shop and make better choices.
We’ve tested and picked 18 Web sites we think are easy to use and will help you save money this holiday season. Take a look:
If you really want to score a great buy, use a price-comparison site. PriceGrabber.com (side-by-side product comparison, merchant coupons and rebates) Shopping.com and mySimon.com all are great options because they give you a lot of results for your searches with the range of prices listed, product descriptions, side-by-side product comparison, and store and product ratings. The sites also are good places to go if you are looking for gift ideas.Pronto.com fetches prices on 70 million products from 65,000 merchants, a larger retail search than rival sites offer. The site is geared heavily toward products users like most. That is, when you click on a category, you’ll get a list of the top 100 liked products. You also can get gift-buying tips from community members.
If you know exactly what you want and need just a bare-bones price comparison site, try Google’s shopping search engine, Froogle. What you’ll get are lots of results for your search, product reviews, seller ratings and a “local shopping” option to help you find products at stores near you. What you won’t see is a home page full of hot products, shopping guides, product categories and colorful images you’ll find on sites such as PriceGrabber and Shopping.com.
Hot deals!
If you’re not exactly sure what to get that certain person on your gift list, check out online deal sites, which post loads of discounted items. You’re bound to find the right gift at the right price.Our new favorite is dealnews, which has a team of about 15 deal hunters keeping their eyes on a million products at a 1,000 stores. Plus merchants and the site’s visitors tip them off to bargains. The deal hunters hand pick the best deals among the thousands they get daily and update the site at least 200 times a day, says Dan de Grandpre, founder and chief executive of dealnews.
Dealtaker.com lists some deals on its home page, but you’ll find hundreds more listed in its forums. So if you’re willing to take the time to troll through the forums, you’ll probably find deals here you won’t find other places. Or use the search option if there’s a particular product for which you’re trying to find a deal.
There are more than 153,000 forum members who post deals, and you don’t have to register to view the ones listed. The site also offers coupons for about 1,500 online stores, a price search engine and e-mail notification of deals. Because the site gets about 2 million visitors during the holidays, “when you see a good deal …
For electronics, our favorite is DealsOfAmerica, which updates deals every hour. Every item it lists on the home page has a picture, a description, the store that’s offering the deal and, best of all, the list price so you’ll know just how much of a bargain you’re getting. The site also has coupons, a price-comparison tool, a list of products or services available for free after rebate or coupon and a hot deal e-mail alert you can sign up to receive.
Deals are from top online retailers and brick-and-mortar stores with nationwide presence.
Shop with cyber-coupons
Put away the scissors — you don’t have to clip these coupons. Plenty of sites offer coupon codes (and printable coupons) for online and brick-and-mortar retailers. The nice thing about our picks is that you don’t have to register on these sites to gain access to the coupons.CouponCabin posts featured coupons, as well as special offers, on its homepage and lets you search for coupons from 1,200 online stores by category and merchant. You also can sign up to receive coupons by e-mail.
RetailMeNot offers coupons from more than 20,000 stores and a community where you can get tips and deal info from others.
CouponMountain.com focuses on coupons for Dell, HP, Buy.com and Amazon.com, but also has coupons for stores such as Old Navy and Target. You can search by category or store. It also has a list of the most popular coupons lists deals of the day.
And if you’re shopping for children, check out CleverBabies.com. It has coupons for stores such as Toys R Us, DisneyShopping.com and babyGap. The site also posts sales, has forums and has its own coupons.
Get cash back
Another way to spend less is to earn cash while you shop. That’s the premise of FatWallet and Ebates.com. Join their cash-back programs and you can get cash back (usually a percentage of your purchase) when you buy items from select merchants.Also, not all merchants featured on these sites participate and of those that do, some have their own requirements for earning cash back.
Parting tips
On a final note, if you’re shopping online be sure to look for privacy and security seals on retailers’ sites, know the return and exchange policies, and check shipping deadlines to ensure your gifts arrive on time. (See What to Know About Shopping Online for more advice.)Happy shopping!
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› Budget101 Discussion List Archives › Budget101 Discussion List › Amazing Holiday Deals Online