Introduction
Shopping has evolved tremendously with the growing popularity of the internet. Although this has led to plenty of new ways to shop, sniffing out the best deals isn’t always as easy as it should be. My intent is to share with the reader some of the better sites that I’ve come across in my own online shopping experiences. This article is not meant as a broad overview of online shopping as a whole, but rather an insight into a few good tools and services.
Froogle.com
Froogle is a recent Google invention which is shaping up to be a sophisticated shopping tool. You can use it to search for specific items, such as the “Sony Cyber-Shot DSW-1”, or for something more general like “party supplies”. In both cases Froogle will scour through thousands of online retailers to bring you a list of products, with pictures included, organized as you specify. Given the generous sorting options you can narrow your search down to exactly what you want to see.
Along with the item and its price, Froogle will list a “Store Rating” score which is taken out of five possible points. This information, when available, allows a user to pass judgment on the trustworthiness of the retailer who is offering the product. This information is particularly useful when deciding whether or not to trust an online retailer that is offering a deal that seems to be too good to be true. Froogle is a great tool for comparison shoppers.
Epinions.com
Epinions, short for e-opinions, are unsolicited consumer reviews and product advice in reference to hundreds of thousands of consumer products. Epinions.com has reviews about nearly any item under the sun, from kitchenware to digital cameras. Users rate products on several categories as well as supplying a lengthy description of their experience with the product they choose to review. In my experience, the reviews I’ve come across are typically very insightful. This site is especially helpful to those looking to choose between similar products.
Half.com
Half, an eBay company, works similarly to its auction-site big brother. Individuals list items that they want to sell, but in this case they choose a specific price for their items. These listings do not expire, as they would on eBay, but rather remain until the item is sold. Of items with many available sellers, the lowest priced item is given the most attention and is nearly always first to sell.
This atmosphere encourages sellers to reduce the prices of their items in order to compete for the lowest price. The buyer has a unique advantage as each seller is competing for his attention. The result is often incredible. I’ve found full-length CDs that would be hard to find elsewhere for as little as $1.50. This is a great resource for textbook shopping, as well. For the spring semester, I was able to purchase eight textbooks for less than $300, and in the process saved about $300 off bookstore prices. Half.com is by far the best place to get used CDs, DVDs, video games, and books.
SlickDeals.net
I consider this site as much an entertainment site as a serious shopping tool. It is simply a list of particularly good deals on the internet, as posted by users of the website. The list is updated every few hours, and most deals quickly expire (usually within a few days, though sometimes in only a few hours). The deals range from inexpensive hard drives (often with mail-in rebates) to a good deal on a specific digital camera. They even list free magazine subscriptions when they become available online, though most of the deals are technology-related. Checking SlickDeals.net fairly regularly has become an online habit of mine that has occasionally paid off very richly. However, this site isn’t for the shopper that has a specific item in mind.
