Online Shopping Discounts

Compare Prices and Save With Online Coupon Codes

So you're just about the hit the Buy Now button, and that little voice says: "Are you sure you're getting the best possible deal on this purchase?" You'd be smart to listen to the little voice, because if you haven't done your research with a price comparison search engine, or looked for an online coupon or discount code, you're probably paying more than you should.

You won't always find a better deal, but in many cases online retailers offer discounts or coupons that you'll never know about unless you look for them. Sometimes you'll even luck out and find a great deal and a coupon code. You could end up saving quite a bit of cash, especially if you're buying a big ticket item. Here are some online price comparison search engines for shoppers and some recommended places to find coupon codes for Internet shopping.

Price Comparison Websites

Price comparison websites are basically shopping search engines. Generally you just enter what you are looking for and a listing of vendors is generated, as are lists of pricing information and product reviews. If multiple stores are offering the same item, you can quickly find out who has the lowest price, what the shipping charges will be, and the reputation of the store. Here are some of the most popular price comparison sites:

• BizRate is one of the oldest and most respected price comparison website around. It allows you to search for products by category or keyword. This site is popular because in addition to offering you a price comparison by vendor, it also offers you consumer reviews and ratings of products and stores. Other popular features offered by BizRate are informative articles on shopping and shopping trend lists. For example you can click on a city and see what shoppers from that city are shopping for the most.
• Shopping.com was a pioneer in online comparison shopping and today offers price data from thousands of trusted stores from across the Web. Shopping.com offers shoppers easy-to-use search tools, along with millions of unbiased product and merchant reviews from the Epinions community, all in one place.
• Like.com is a unique price comparison website. This site utilizes visual search engine technology in lieu of keyword searches. This means that the user clicks on a picture of what they are interested in, in order to generate a listing of similar products. In addition to searching for items by visual cues, you can also search by specific features that you want, such as toggle buttons, zippers or belts. One feature that is in development for this site is the ability to upload your own photograph to the Like.com system and use this graphic to search for similar items.
• NexTag is another very popular price comparison website. This site offers several great features that make researching purchases easier to do. For example, you can set up a price alert tracker so that you are notified when an item you are interested in goes on sale or is listed for a specific price. Another popular feature is that you can create and save shopping lists. This will speed up your research, especially when looking for gift items.

Coupon Sites

Coupon clipping is a time honored tradition. However, in the past coupon clipping relied heavily on what was printed in local media sources like newspapers and flyers. Today traditional coupon distribution has been supplemented by online coupon websites like the ones below.

Coupon websites are generally free, and allow you to search for coupons and online shopping discount codes by product or by vendor. When you find one you're interested in you either click a link that takes you directly to the store, or write down the code to use at checkout.

• Coupon Surfer is a coupon website that offers both printable coupons and discount codes for online stores. In order to use this site you will need to sign up for a free membership. Then you can search for grocery coupons, clothing coupons and dining coupons. You can browse by keyword, product or store. This site has been online for ten years and has a good reputation for providing quality coupons.
• Retail Me Not is a coupon site that specializes in online store discount codes. To use this site you enter the name of the online store you want to shop at and then write down the codes for the discounts that you want to use. This site has codes for over 20,000 online stores including Victorias Secret, Amazon.com, AE.com, Ebay.com and PapaJohns.com.
• Cool Savings is one of the pioneers of the coupon site. This site requires coupon hunters to sign up for a free membership before they search and print out coupons. This is a relatively painless process that can be completed in a few minutes. Once a member, the user will be able to search for coupons for free samples, free items, grocery coupons, travel coupons, pet coupons and baby coupons. As you find coupons you are interested in you click on a check box next to it. When you are done hunting for coupons you click on a print icon and all of your coupons are printed out on your laser or inkjet printer.
• Coupon Cabin is another well respected coupon website. This site offers both printable coupons and discount codes for online stores like Target, HomeDepot and Zappos. What is unique about this site is that you can sign up for a weekly coupon alert that is sent to your email on Mondays. This alert lists all the new coupons that have been added to the database.

You may be wondering why these shopping search engines and coupon websites exist. Are they run by humanitarians who just want to help people get a good deal? That's hardly the case. In most cases, the links you follow from these sites are affiliate deals that give the owners of the price comparison or coupon sites a commission on any sales that result. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. Most large companies have affiliate programs, and they are happy to give a slice of their profits to savvy marketers who bring customers to their doors. But if you take my advice and use one of the sites recommended here, I won't make a penny. Just so you know...

Do you have a favorite shopping search engine or coupon code website that's not listed here? Post a comment and tell us about it...