Comparison Shopping

19 Dec, 2007 Money Savers

I am going to write about something that a lot of people already know about. People that have been around the internet a while know about these comparison shopping sites but there are people that have no clue how much money they could save by using these sites. I am always surprise when I tell people about them and they had no idea they existed.

I make the majority of my purchases on the internet and have been for the past 5 years. I know I have saved 1000’s of dollars using these comparison shopping sites. I just recently added a 28″ Viewsonic monitor that I am anxiously awaiting now. I saved about $50 by using comparison shopping. Which brings me to the 1st “Comparison Shopping” site Pricegrabber.
Pricegrabber is one of the more popular comparison sites. You can find just about anything you are looking for and the site is very user friendly. Once you find the product you are looking for it will compare the prices at different online vendors showing you the best prices. It will even include the tax & shipping when you input your zip code.

The next comparison shopping site I have used quite a bit is Pricewatch. Now pricewatch is specifically for computer related products whereas Pricegrabber has a little bit of everything. I use to buy all of my computer parts through Pricewatch when I was building or upgrading my computers.

The next comparison shopping site is Google. Yes google does everything! The way google’s comparison works is you type in what you are looking for and instead of clicking the search button you click on the shopping button up on the top of the page. The interface isn’t as intuitive or customizable as say Pricegrabber but once you learn to navigate through you can find some good deals. Sometimes it doesn’t bring up exactly what you are looking for so it can be somewhat difficult.

The last comparison shopping site for today is MySimon. MySimon is similar in style to Pricegrabber but I found it didn’t have as many comparisons or products. The interface and usability is pretty good for novice users though.

Check out all these sites when you are looking to make a purchase online and see how much money you save versus just going to a store. Let me know what you think.