Buying online can save you lots but is not easy to track down the best deals and can be frustrating when something specific needs to be bought at a specific time.
Being an avid online shopper for some time now, here is a quick piece on the different price comparison websites that would come very handy. A quick stroll through these websites will ensure are getting the best deals around and get some extra brownie points when showing off your loot to friends and family.
There are the usual websites that everyone would generally get directed to such as hotukdeals.com, comparethemarket.com, gocompare.com, wowcher.co.uk, moneysupermarket.com and uswitch.com. They are good, does their job and known to everyone. But we need to get into the inside track and what smart shoppers use to steal a deal. Some are known and some are lesser known. A world of advice though, if a price is too good to be true then it is too good to be true! It is best to stick with known retailers and online retailers with a good review record. Here goes the list:
General Online Shopping:
PriceRunner (http://www.pricerunner.co.uk/)
PriceRunner is a good all-rounder when it comes to comparing prices. The website lets you search across categories of products, give a price range, access to reviews. A great feature is that it lets you set price alerts to inform when a particular product reaches a price point you are looking for.
Tracking Amazon
CamelCamelCamel (http://camelcamelcamel.com/)
I am a big fan of Amazon and shop regularly on the website. A good idea is to buy products that ship directly from Amazon and avoid buying form the marketplace unless a seller is reviewed exhaustively. With the breadth of products that Amazon carries it sometimes gets intimidating and a little help wouldn’t be bad. The three camels come to the rescue here. The website lets you track price history of products on Amazon and set price alerts to spot those sweet deals that keep popping up in Amazon regularly.
Air Travel
Cheapflights (http://www.cheapflights.co.uk/)
Planning holidays has become more time consuming that the actual time spent on a holiday. And with airfare rising frequently the earlier you plan the better deals you would be able to bag. A good starting point is to book your flight tickets early and then plan the rest of your itinerary around the travel dates. There are a number of airfare comparisons around, but the one I end up using most is Cheapflights. Clean interface, ability to search deals to decide on your travel dates and price tracking through email alerts keeps me on top of things and help decide.
Special interest in Photography
CameraPriceBuster (http://www.camerapricebuster.com/)
Anyone interested in Photography and planning to invest a small fortune in starting or expanding their kits must have this website on a click. Not the best of interfaces, but gets the job done. I used this website exhaustively to get the best price for my Nikon D7000 and Lenses.
Grocery Shopping
mySupermarket (http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/)
Here is a wildcard which has caught my eye recently and I would love to hear if anyone uses this website regularly. It is always difficult and not practical to compare individual grocery prices and go supermarket hopping to fill your basket. This website lets you pick the best prices for products across ASDA, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose and Ocada and facilitates the online buying process. However, with online Grocery shopping applying constraints such as minimum order value, delivery costs and slots, I am still not warmed up to this idea. Any thoughts?