Online Shopping Tutorial

What's the best way to find good deals online?

This question was answered on November 23, 2005. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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Finding the Apex of quality and price of any given product online can be a daunting task There’s a pretty accurate system you can follow, however, that will leave you with a high-quality product at nearly the best price it can be purchased for Here’s the basic process:

1. Start by spending some time researching the type of item you want This will most likely be the most time-consuming step as you want to make sure you educate yourself on what makes certain products in this category better than others and which contain the features you want and/or need Type a general description of what you want in Google (don’t be too specific; you just want to get a general idea of what’s out there) and start analyzing different sites that sell the type of item you want Continue to search and browse until you narrow it down to a particular manufacturer and model that will fit your needs.

2. Use Google again to search for “<item model> reviews”, where <item model> would be the product name or model number of the item you’re interested in You should get plenty of links where you can read comments from current owners of the particular product There will always be disgruntled customers but look for common complaints about the product If the general consensus is that this is a quality product, continue on to the next step If the majority of the reviews seem to be negative, head back to step one and look for another product.

3. Now that you’ve found a quality product, it’s time to shop price Navigate your browser to a popular shopbot like PriceGrabber.com I like PriceGrabber.com because you can give it your zip code and it will automatically figure in the cost of shipping In the PriceGrabber search box type the model number or name of the product and click Search If PriceGrabber has the item in its database (it probably does) the most relevant matches will be displayed Find the one that looks to be the closest match and click the corresponding Compare Prices button If this is your first time to PriceGrabber.com you’ll be invited to input your zip code so it can figure in the different shipping charges for each retailer It will even tag the best “BottomLinePrice” in red text to easily see which retailer is offering you the best deal.

4. The final step before ordering is to do some checking up on the retailer before giving them your money Chances are that any company featured on PriceGrabber.com is reputable but better safe than sorry To the far right of the retailer’s listing on PriceGrabber.com, you’ll see a Reviews link and an out-of-5-stars rating Use these tools to help you determine if this is a company you want to do business with; it’s always okay to go with the next cheapest retailer with a better reputation.

5. When you’re ready, just click on the Shop button on the far left to begin the checkout procedure.

This is only one of many ways you can shop smart online but this method seems to work very well in getting high-quality products at the best price Cheers!

About the author

Posted by Chad of Data Doctors on November 23, 2005

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