Two New Sites for Bargain Hunters

A post at ShoeMoney led me to a new "deal site" called Dealighted. Dealighted pulls all the deals from Fatwallet, Slickdeals, Anandtech , and GottaDeal, and puts them all together on one site.

The deals are submitted by real people, and you can choose to see the most popular, or all the deals that have been submitted. And there's also a price comparison function that's very handy. But I have to say that I agree with Jeremy's criticism; it would be nice if users could vote on the deals, or set preferences to filter out the deals they see (I don't want or need to see a "deal" for a free sample of the latest tampon technology, especially if they'll only ship to a US mailing address).

And the other new site I discovered (thanks to ProBargainHunter) is CouponLooker, a search engine for coupon or promo codes. CouponLooker collects coupon code info from a bunch of different coupon sites and lets you find them easily through their search engine.

These sorts of aggregator sites could come in real handy for those of us who like a bit of online bargain hunting, since it could mean we need to visit a smaller number of sites to get the same information.

Technorati Tags: bargains, bargain hunting, CouponLooker, Dealighted, shopping, price comparison, free stuff, coupons, coupon codes

CrazyRefund -- Buy Stuff and Win Your Money Back

Yan at ProBargainHunter blogged about a new shopping rewards program called CrazyRefund. Of course there are already hundreds of shopping rebates/rewards sites out there, so CrazyRefund is doing something a little different. Instead of giving you reward points, or a 5% rebate or whatever, CrazyRefund gives you the chance to get a full refund on your purchase. That's right, you get get all your money back.

You have a different chance to win with each of their participating merchants. For example, if you make a purchase at BookCloseouts, you've got a 1 in 12 chance of winning a full refund. At Dell Home Systems, the odds are 1 in 120. And at Magazines.com, your chances of getting a refund are 1 in 4.

It's an interesting twist on the rebates/rewards idea, and I think I'll give them a try.

Technorati Tags: shopping, rewards, mypoints, crazyrefund

Powered by ScribeFire.

Starbury Sneakers -- Shoes at a Fair Price

I don't follow American basketball (or Australian basketball or Croatian basketball, for that matter), and I don't follow sneaker news, so I hadn't heard of Stephon Marbury or the Starbury basketball shoes before.



In case you haven't heard about them either, the basic story is that Marbury is endorsing the Starbury line of shoes, which retail for around $15. Yep, that's right. $15 instead of the $100 to $200 a lot of shoes endorsed by high-profile sports stars cost. The Starbury fits in perfectly with the Steve & Barry's "big idea" -- that people should be able to buy good clothes at reasonable prices.



According to the LA Times (BugMeNot), we live in "a world where parents are pressured to shell out money for expensive
sneakers while struggling to pay rent and buy groceries; a world where
kids get robbed, shot and strangled over the latest styles." I don't know if that's true, but if it is, it's crazy. And if these Starbury shoes can help change that, then I'm all for it.



From what I've read, the Starbury One hasn't gotten great reviews as a serious basketball shoe, but compare very well when compared to other cheap sneakers. The Association (a basketball blog) says:<blockquote>Biggest notable is the sole. It's thin. Real thin. It's like walking in a padded slipper.</blockquote> and Basketbawful says:<blockquote>If you want something that looks cool to walk around in, then the Starbury Ones are a damn good shoe for $15. You could probably even use some gel inserts to make them more comfortable. BUT...if you expect to play basketball in them, you're going to be tragically disappointed.</blockquote> I suspect most people who'll be buying them won't be playing a lot of basketball in them, so maybe they'll be spared the tragic disappointment. Jerry, at  Frugal Thoughts, bought a pair of low-tops for $9.95, and says "Surprisingly, the shoes don't feel cheap."



With everything getting upscaled, upgraded and/or supersized, I like the Steve & Barry's concept, and I hope we see lots more companies and individuals embracing the idea a business can be successful by selling good products at fair, reasonable prices.



Technorati Tags: starbury

Powered by ScribeFire.

Paypal ATM Card

I was checking out the "virtual mall" at 5starpromotions.com, and I thought it was really smart that they let members know what payment methods the merchant accepts in the little blurb about each "store." Specifically, they let members know whether or not they can shop at that online store using Paypal. That's important for a lot of PTR members, because most of them are paid with Paypal.

But one thing to keep in mind, for US-based Paypal members anyway, is that if you get a Paypal ATM/Debit card, you can shop at any store, online or offline, that accepts Mastercard. To be eligible, you have to have a Paypal Premier or Business Account. Premier and Business accounts get charged a small fee for receiving money, so PTR members who get paid small amounts ($2.00 and under) might want to keep their Paypal personal account as well (the Paypal user agreement allows you to have one personal account and one Premier or Business account).

Since having a Paypal Premier account lets you accept credit card payments, I think everybody who sells anything online (at their own website, or through eBay or whatever) should have one. The ATM card is an added bonus, and gives you more options for buying things with Paypal.

I think having a "virtual mall" is a good idea for PTR programs, and I think it would probably be smart for the PTR owners to provide information to their members (the US members, at least) about that ATM card. It might increase their affiliate sales if they did.

Tags: PTR, Paypal

A Great Price Comparison Shopping Site

Another cool bargain-hunting site I've come across recently is Mpire. It's a shopping search engine, a price-comparison site, and coupon/rebate/prmotion code site all rolled into one. Oh, and they even track price trends, so they can tell you the average sale price, and auction price, of the item your looking for, as well as whether or not the price has been going up or down. Sweet!

Their big partners include eBay, Amazon.com, Yahoo, Overstock.com, and Shopping.com and others. So how does it work?

First, you type in the product you're looking for. For my example, I'll use a couple of the books I recommended in an earlier post.

First I type in keywords for the first book, CSS: The Definitive Guide. That link (yes, it's an affiliate link) takes you to Amazon.com, where the book is selling for $28.34 (and from $23.99 + shipping in the Amazon Marketplace).

Mpire returns 7 stores selling that book, with Amazon's price getting beaten by 2 cents at Overstock.com. But it's still well below Mpire's average store price for the book -- $30.14. The average auction price is just $9.50, though, so I click on the auction tab to see what's available.

I get two eBay results -- one listed at US$7.00 with a Buy It Now price of US$9.00, and the other from eBay UK listed at £31.67 (over US$60). The UK price is way too steep for me, but the US$7.00 looks pretty reasonable, although it's for the older, first edition of the book. The seller says he'll send it to Australia via Airmail for US$9.00, and for that price I can get a second book shipped for free. At that price, I can get the CSS book and eBay Hacks for less than the cost of the CSS book at either Amazon or Overstock. Looks like a pretty good deal to me!

The other book I'll search for at Mpire is HTML, XHTML, and CSS by Elizabeth Castro. Amazon sells it for $19.79 (from $18.20 + shipping from sellers in the Amazon Marketplace), and according to Mpire, that's the best price going. I also saw that they also had results for the old 4th edition like mine, and it's selling for only $6.44 (incl. shipping) at Alibris.

The Mpire site looks great and is very easy to use, and definitely worth checking out if you're interested in finding bargains when you shop online.

Losing Control at Amazon.com

I've been a happy Amazon customer for years. But only for books. Despite the fact that Amazon has so many product categories they had to give up on giving each one a separate tab at the top of the screen, I've continued to think of them as a bookstore, that also happened to sell the occasional lawnmower, trombone, or laptop.

But today I decided to buy something from Amazon, and it's not a book. It's a TV tuner card for my PC. Specifically a Hauppauge WinTV Go Plus Model 1033. I researched TV tuner cards for about 7 1/2 minutes and decided to go with a Hauppauge WinTV Go Model 190. Read some good reviews from people who appeared to know what they were talking about. The price was right. I was all set. I'd already decided I was going to buy it at Amazon, because I've got some gift certificates that I need to use. Sure enough, they sell 'em, but just before I add it to my shopping cart, I see the "Other products by Hauppauge" link. Can't hurt to just have a quick look. Right?

And that's when I see the WinTV Go Plus. Plus what? A remote control. Otherwise, I don't know that there's any difference between the two cards. If there is, it's probably something too technical for me to have an opinion on anyway. So for a bit extra, I can get the one with the remote.

Now keep in mind I've got a TV. Several. And they all have remotes. As do the various VCRs and DVD players connected to them. But none of them are in the family room, or even visible from the family room, so I can't watch TV and use the computer at the same time. This was the unfortunate and unsatisfactory situation that led to the decision to buy a TV tuner card. So I could sit on my butt in front of the computer and watch (or more likely listen to) TV. But I can't for the life of me work out why I need a remote control to do that.

According to the product info, the remote works up to 30 ft. away from the PC. That would put me sitting in my neighbor's family room. And hell, he's probably got a TV in his family room, so I could just watch his TV. Or I could watch one of my TVs if I wanted to watch TV and not be sitting in front of the computer. I know all this logically. I have absolutely no need for the remote control for a TV tuner card for my PC.

But I'm going to buy it anyway. It has me in it's power.

Help me.

Categories: Amazon.com, shopping, gadgets, TV

Online Price Comparison Services

After reading Sean O'Rourke's review of the new MSN Shopping (beta) site at Organized Shopping Blog, I thought I'd mention a few other comparison shopping services that are available. There are literally hundreds of them, including some for very specific product niches. But for general shopping, try these:

• Froogle - owned by Google (still in beta)
• InStore - owned by AOL
• Shopping.com - DealTime + Epinions = Shopping.com
• PriceGrabber - shopping services for US, Canada, UK, Mexico, and Brazil
• MySimon - part of the CNet Network

The primary feature of these services is to compare prices at different online stores. They also often provide product reviews and reviews and ratings of the different merchants. Using one or more of these services can help you find the product you're looking for at the best price, available from trustworthy online shops.

I put several of the comparison shopper services to the test today, and was quite happy with the results. A CD that I could've easily paid $18-20 for, I found for $13.50. A book that would've cost me over $20 at Amazon.com was available for $17.40 elsewhere. And a possible $100 savings on an 40Gb iPod was enough to convince me that comparison shopping is absolutely essential if you want a good deal.

I'll try to put together some reviews, and maybe talk about some of the more specialized shopping services some time soon.

Categories: shopping

For Aussies: EmailCash and PureProfile

Australians interested in saving money should definately consider joining two excellent Australian websites -- EmailCash and PureProfile.

EmailCash is a rewards program that gives members points for reading emails, visiting websites, answering surveys and shopping at EmailCash Reward Partners. And the best part is, not only do they reward you for shopping, but you can find some great Australian websites. My favourite is ClickDVD for music, movie, and TV series DVDs, and my wife loves Alt(Everything) for all-natural body products. EmailCash has been around since 1999 and has over 400,000 members!

PureProfile was originally owned by AustraliaPost, and pays members for participating in surveys. The surveys usually take less than 1 minute to complete, and pay between $1-3. I've been a member since 2002, and not only have I earned a bit of extra cash, I've enjoyed quite a few offers from PureProfile marketing partners.

Categories: rewards, shopping

MyPoints

Joining MyPoints is a great way to save money online. It's a rewards program that's been around for nearly 10 years and has over 10 million members.

MyPoints members earn reward points for shopping at hundreds on online stores -- like OfficeDepot.com, Overstock.com, Avon.com and many more. You can also get points for signing up for free trial offers, and even for just reading email ads sent by MyPoints. Then once you've earned some points, you can spend them to buy gift certificates at many of your favorite stores.

I've been a member for over 5 years now, and I love it. Not only have I found a lot of great deals online, but I've been rewarded for every dollar I've spent. I've earned thousands of points, and traded them for for gift certificates, magazine subscriptions, and even used them to help charities like the Red Cross.

Another way MyPoints members can earn reward points is for telling their friends about the program and encouraging them to join. So if you're interested, please email me at joinmypoints at gmail dot com and I'll send you a special invitation.

Or if you just can't wait, go to straight to the MyPoints website and sign up now!

Categories: rewards