5 Ways To Super Savings Internet Shopping
By Prasad Kopanati, Fri Dec 9th

Save at least 200 dollars for 1000 dollars of shopping– that is20% of the total money spent. With common sense and littleprudence you can save hundreds of dollars on your holidayshopping bills. From my past experiences, I have chosen the fivebest practices that will give you the maximum savings. Perusethem, put them into action and email me your numbers on savings.

Comparison Shopping: Gone are the days when there was no easyway to compare the price of a product at different stores otherthan visiting the stores. In this new era of cyber-shopping,there are numerous options to compare the price of a product atdifferent locations of the globe. With very little effort,internet would find the best and right price, at the right storefor you to save big bucks.

A few days back, I was shopping for a Mini DV camcorder in theprice range of $500 to $700. An ardent internet shopper, Iresearched on brands, their prices and decided to buy a JVCGRD200 Mini DV camcorder. It is (may be “it was”) my belief thatAmazon.com delivers the best products at the lowest prices (Itdoes sell the best products, but not at the cheapest prices – atleast in this case). As always, I was poised to buy the productfrom Amazon.

The comparison on the price of this product (viawww.shopping.com) revealed that the product was sold as low as$299.00. With further research I understood that the price wasindeed 299 US dollars. Delaying no more, I bought the camcorderfrom this seller instead of my first option – to save only $400.

As I look back, it still perplexes me how I saved $400 on asingle buy. Does it not surprise you when you cut down 400dollars on a single item? Perhaps the most important thing I didwas comparing the prices for this product on www.shopping.com.It paid!

Cognizant Shopping: As a customer, your goal is to buy the bestproduct at the cheapest price. Right?

You agree with me that it is not an intelligent idea to buy aproduct for 10 dollars when it is sold at 3 dollars less at thenear by store. Neither do you accord it a savvy-shopping, to buya product for 50 dollars when its price can be reduced by 10dollars via the special store discount/coupon for the product.

Many of us do not realize the power of coupons. They holdtremendous potential for huge savings. Depending on how you usethem, a for 10 dollars for every 50 dollars would save 40dollars over a period of month, assuming shopping once a week.Extrapolating, it is a 200 dollars savings over a 1000 dollarshopping-money. A typical Christmas shopping would amount tothese numbers easily.

Although the example seems to be ideal, it resonates the ideasof retails stores like JC Penny or Sears, whoseholiday-shopping-placards read “$10 off for every $50 shopping –JC Penny”, “$35 off for every $250 spent on electronics –Sears”. Get into the habit of using the coupons wheneverpossible to appreciate the savings accumulating into yourpockets.

Selective Shopping: Depending on which state you buy the productfrom and which store you buy it from, you may or may not becharged a sales tax. If the sale is exempted the sales tax, itis a savings of 6 percent to 9 percent of total sale amount.Each seller clearly indicates if a sales tax would be applied

onthe sale in the geographical location. Thus, a littlecautiousness would translate to a savings as high as 9 percent.

On the downside, you may have to pay for the shipping for theproduct which in most cases would compare less to the total ofsales tax. And, by the way, due to the immense competition amongthe internet-sellers, you may end up making a bargain by notpaying the taxes and not paying for the shipping either. Freeshipping – as it is called, is common on many internet sitesthese days. For an item priced at $1000 you would save as muchas $90 as sales tax savings – all you do is pick the rightseller.

Early Shopping: Planning on shopping near the beginning of theseason will give you ample time to compare the prices on theproduct at various sellers. During this process, you will form aballpark estimate of the item.

Let me remind you that the variation of the price can be anywhere from few dollars to few hundreds of dollars depending onthe original price of the product, which makes it necessary foryou to do this homework as to know the kind-of best price beforeyou finalize on buying the product.

In addition, sellers usually hike the prices as the holidayseason approaches so that they can display higherdiscount-numbers on their sale-advertisements. The higherdiscounts not only attract more customers but also compensateand compete the prices for the similar items at other stores.The fact is, even when you see greater discounts, you would notrealize tangible savings around the holiday season unless youend up getting an early bird discount. I am somewhat reluctantto say this is true all the times, but is the case in severaloccasions.

Team Shopping: Like in a workplace, collaborative shoppingproduces amazing results. You are not mandated to go to ashopping mall as a team, but exchanging ideas and information asa team would be advantageous.

Talk to your friends about their experience buying a similaritem in the past. Gather information about the quality of theproduct, prices at different stores, seller reputation, etc thatplay a vital role on your buying-decision. Moreover, ask yourfriends and relatives if they could share any discount coupons.If preferred customer, they would share the coupons with you,which in turn would give you the opportunity to cut down on thefinal price. Beware that some sellers distributenon-transferable coupons in which cases you need to be creativeto maximize your savings.

So finally: These ideas only scratch the surface of the iceberg.You can get innovative and creative to find the best deals onthe market. Websites like www.techbargains.com,www.ecoupons.com, etc are some of the few sites that gatherinformation about the greatest deals of the day. Internet hasmany such great money-saving ideas.

Armed with this information, I am sure you would be able tocraft a good plan which would save you many dollars eachshopping trip. If you are meticulous enough, you would save atleast $200 for every $1000 dollars spent. I guarantee it. If youdeny my proposition or have a different opinion write to me andI will help you see the potential of putting the above facts towork.

About the author:Prasad Kopanati is the Vice President of XemanteX Inc.http://www.xemantex.com, an internet company offering languagerelated services. You can reach him via email atteam@xemantex.com.