Learn How to Shop Online

by Tom Farrell

The Internet offers a wealth of sources for online shopping. However, with such vast variety comes confusion: how do you get the best price? I've developed a shopping method which, while perhaps not always guaranteeing the absolute best price, tends to get me the best price I can reasonably get.

To be thoroughly honest, I do receive incentives for the placement of some of the links provided on this page. However, this is the actual procedure I use for my own online shopping, and I wrote up the description of how to do it all before signing up for all of the affiliate programs. I would give the same advice if I didn't make a dime from it.

Step 1: www.ebay.com

My first step when buying anything for which I'm concerned about price is to look on www.ebay.com. (Not buy, just look. We haven't gotten to buying yet.) I look for an example of the item in excellent condition, either selling fairly soon or up for "buy it now". (Items up for bid that don't close within a few hours are not a good example of pricing because many items don't approach their actual sale value until very shortly before the sale is complete.)

If the item is reasonably common or popular, you will probably find examples of it that are new (unopened, unused). The price at which they're selling on www.ebay.com is a good guideline for what you should be looking for elsewhere. Make sure to check shipping charges and factor them into the price: Sometimes what looks like a super bargain on www.ebay.com isn't because of excessive shipping charges.

Step 2: Amazon.com

Search Now:

I look at Amazon.com next to find what their price is. I like Amazon.com because I've had excellent experiences with their customer service, and because I trust their security. So, I like to know their price, because if it's fairly close to the best price, I may just buy from them in the end. But again, we haven't gotten to buying yet, so this is still just looking. If the item doesn't qualify for Amazon.com's free shipping deal, make sure to check the shipping cost by adding it to your shopping cart, then going to the check out screen. (You don't have to buy, just go to the screen before you buy and see what it says the shipping charge would be.)

Step 3: Froogle

Froogle is a feature of Google that aggregates prices from a large number of online retailers, allowing you to quickly search for what you're shopping for and compare prices. It's not explicitly designed to just give you the cheapest price, but by careful use of its controls, you can determine the cheapest price listed.

Go to Froogle and type in what you're shopping for. You'll get a bunch of results, usually some of which will be the correct item and some won't. Let's pretend you're searching for a television, and you want just a plain television but some of the results are for televisions with DVD players built in. Your search box started out looking like this:

Next, you should subtract some keywords that mention the features most prominently appearing which are incorrect, like this:

Submit the search again, and you'll get more focused results. Next, you may be getting a lot of results which are related to what you're looking for but aren't the goal itself. For example, maybe antennas are showing up, or extra power cords. Such accessories are usually much cheaper than the primary item, so you can remove them by setting a minimum price. At the left side of the page, set a minimum price slightly above that of the accessories you're seeing, then press the "Go" button.

At this point, most of the results you're seeing should be the item you're looking for. Glance over the first screen of results and quickly identify the cheapest price you see. (Don't worry about being perfect, this is just a first approximation, the first low price you see would even be fine.) Round it up to the nearest dollar (so, $199.99 would be rounded to $200) and enter that price as the maximum price, pressing "Go" again. This will get you a new set of results which are lower in range.

Again, identify the cheapest price you see for your item on the first screen, enter it as the new maximum price, and press "Go". Repeating this process will help you to quickly narrow down the choices to find the cheapest one. Again, make sure to check the shipping cost.

Step 4: Pricegrabber

Pricegrabber is another site which aggregates prices from a variety of online retailers. Unlike Froogle, it is designed to identify the cheapest price for you, and will even factor in shipping costs for you if you provide your US zip code. Use their search feature to find the product you're looking for, select it from the listed results, and compare retailers on the product-specific page.

Step 5: Telephone

Next, call or visit some local stores to check their prices. That's right, stores. You know, those big piles of bricks that you go zooming by regularly where they sell stuff. You can usually get a better price online, but not always. Also, sometimes the savings from the better price online is eliminated by shipping costs. Buying at a local store should be preferable to you if they have the best price: you're supporting local business, and if the item is defective you can return the item locally instead of having to ship it back to who knows where. Remember to factor in sales tax in the total item cost, and delivery charges if the item is unusually large.

Step 6: Compare results

By now you should have at least 5 different prices to compare, from the steps above. Now, compare them. If one of the results is substantially larger than the others, cross it off your list. Otherwise, you'll probably have several substantially similar prices.

Now, consider the features of each possible purchase option.

• Is one of the best prices from www.ebay.com? You can get some great prices on www.ebay.com, and often if you're looking for an item that was recently discontinued, it will still be available there. On the other hand, you have to concern yourself with the reputation of the seller, and even the most honest seller doesn't necessarily ship the item to you as quickly as an actual store would.
• Is Amazon.com on the list? Even if they're a dollar or two more, they have an excellent reputation, so you may be more comfortable buying from them.
• Other online retailers may offer you some level of assurance, if for example they're a major retail brand that you trust, or if they're affiliated with Yahoo Stores.
• Even if you've never heard of a particular online retailer before, you can probably safely buy from them anyway. Check with your credit card issuer or bank: you most likely have substantial purchase protection offered by your credit card anyway, and US law offers some protections to US cardholders as well. So, you can most likely be safe buying online from practically any online retailer.
• Is the price at a local store comparable? Even if it's a few dollars more, you may prefer to support local business and have someone local to help you if there's a problem.

Step 7: Price Matching

Do you have a preferred retailer that does price matching? Contact them to see if they're willing to match the best retail price you've found with the steps above.

Step 8: Buy

Finally, buy. You're making an informed purchase now, so you should be getting a very good price. I hope you'll enjoy whatever you were shopping for!