Money Saving Tips for Online Shopping

What prompted me to write this post is shown in the image below — my wife just got a $26.20 “Big Fat Check” from Ebates. My sister told me about this a few times before, but I didn’t pay any attention…until my wife tried it and got the check.
Ebates Check

I am probably a bit late for the shopping season, but here are some money saving tips for online shopping:

Discounts and Rebates

Ebates — Get $5 bonus for signing up an account. Sign-in to Ebates, shop at over 800 merchant partners, and every 3 months they will cut you a “Big Fat Check” if you saved more than $5.01 (see how Ebates works).
Credit Card Shopping Networks – The two cards I have are Discover Card and Citi Card. Both of them offers shopping program.
- ShopDiscover – Offers 5-20% cash back bonus at nearly 100 major brand name merchant partners. Just go through their links and the extra cash back is applied to your Cashback Bonus account.
- Citi Bonus Cash Center (SM) — This is similar to Discover program. You can earn an average of 5% additional cash back when you shop online, by phone or at participating retail stores. There are over 400 leading retailers in Citi’s network.
Upromise.com — I have an Upromise 529 Plan. They also offer a similar program called Upromise Rewards, where you can shop from over 550 retailers through them. The money saved is added to your 529 Plan.
Employee Discounts Program — This will depends on your employer. But it could be worthwhile to ask your boss or the HR manager if one is available for you. I work for a major corporation and I am eligible for discount, not only on my employer’s products, but also on appliances, automobiles, banking & financial services, cell phones & pagers, computers & electronics, office supplies, and travel & relocation.

Searches and Deals

DealScans — This web site keeps track of best deals from major online retailers. You can do basic search using product name, advanced search, or use one of their pre-defined searches: highest rated deals, best deals (%), best deals ($), or cheap filler items.
PriceProtectr Deals — This feature is similar to the one offered by DealScans. This is a nice feature, but the real gem is their price protection tool (see below).
Google Product Search BETA (formerly Froogle) — I used to use this feature a lot when it was Froogle. Although you can find really good deals using this tool, it takes a lot of time. The one thing I didn’t like about the tool is that there seems to be a lot of predatory retailers listed in the search results.

Price Protection

PriceProtectr – I found out about this from my friend, Glblguy. If you bought something online, all you have to do is copy and paste the URL, and give them your email address. If they notice the price drop any time within the price protection period, they’ll send an email your way.

If you are still doing some last minute shopping, I hope these tips will help you save some money!

More about online shopping:

Wall Street Journal Podcast: Finding Deals Online @ Consumerism Commentary
How Not To Overspend On Your Christmas Shopping @ Lifehack.org
Ebates Big Fat Checks @ Rocket Finance
I Love Christmas Shopping on the Internet @ Blogging Away Debt
Ten Tips for Holiday Shopping Online @ My Dollar Plan

This article was featured the 2008 Carnival of Everything Finance Begins ! (# 10 Edition) hosted by Everything Finance.

12 Comments

rocketc
December 17, 2007, 7:36

Great post, we love to shop online. thanks for the link!
ChristianPF
December 17, 2007, 11:08

I haven’t invested much time in these tools, because I figured it would only be pocket change… but you are making me reconsider… thanks
Mrs. Micah
December 17, 2007, 14:26

Nice. I shall remember this…but I don’t shop online much now.
SingleGuyMoney
December 17, 2007, 17:54

I love Ebates and did a post about it a few weeks ago. My next big fat check should be over $100!!! I prefer to have them pay me via Paypal though.
Pinyo
December 17, 2007, 17:56

Thank you for the comments everyone.
@ChristianPF – give it a try! They are giving $10 special until 12/31, so this is the time to do it.
@SGM – $100! Wow, you shopped a lot. With PayPal, you have to pay fee. May be EFT would be better.
Patrick
December 17, 2007, 18:04

I’ve saved quite a bit of money with Ebates, and I just signed up for PriceProtectr. I just spent a lot of money on Amazon, so hopefully some savings will come through! Great tips!
Lynnae @ Being Frugal
December 17, 2007, 23:03

I love how to save money shopping online posts! I shop online a lot, so I will be trying a lot of these tips!
Harris
December 18, 2007, 9:58

Don’t forget: free shipping and no tax on many many products at amazon.com, plus excellent customer service.
Pinyo
December 18, 2007, 19:26

@Patrick – thank you, and I buy from Amazon a lot too.
@Lynnae – me too
@Harris – exactly
Make Friends, Earn Money
April 20, 2008, 7:39

The online price protector schemes are okay especially if you are making a large purchase, but they just play on the fact that you MIGHT find the product cheaper elesewhere within a given timescale, which in the vast majority of cases is simply not the case, although I’m not completely against it. What will they bring in next Marriage Protection Insurance, so that if you marry someone and find them completely different to what they said they would be you can get a refund on divorce costs?
J Holmes
September 19, 2008, 11:51

Great tips!
Nitesh Mundra
June 27, 2009, 10:40

Yes Ebate sure is a great site but along with that i use discount coupons from Swoopup to get good further cheap, so its a win win situation both ways.