Christmas Shopping: How to Find Deals and Coupons Online?

The National Retail Federation estimates that Holiday shoppers will each spend upwards of $700 in the 2010 Christmas season. With spending up 2.3% from last winter, how can consumers get the most bang for their buck? The answer is in online shopping, which offers the convenience of shopping around without even leaving the couch. Unfortunately, with hundreds of thousands of virtual retailers, shopping from home can become an overwhelming chore. This holiday shopping guide will help you navigate the variety of online shopping tools, raising the value of your dollar and lowering the impact on your wallet.

Bargain Retailers

Discount retailers are a great place to start when searching for deals online. Overstock.com, for example, carries name brand, quality merchandise often acquired as excess from other retailers, saving consumers up to 70% off department store prices. A few other notable bargain retailers include Gilt.com, an invitation-only shopping site that delivers designer merchandise at wholesale prices. SmartBargains is another safe bet with teams of buyers who do the bargain hunting for you.

Location-Based Coupon Deals

Another new form of money saving deals that are popping up all over is location based coupon deals. Sites like Groupon, Twongo, and Living Social offer discounted vouchers for businesses in your area. Each deal usually lasts only 24 hours, and often features half off gift cards for restaurants, retailers, spas and services in your city. These sites rely on the power of group buying, only issuing the sale if a minimum number of people buy it. This ensures that the company receives a number of new customers, and buyers get a great deal.

Retail Coupon Sites

Coupons have always been a great way to save money, but how has this age-old system changed with new technology? These days, finding manufacturers coupons online is easier than ever. Coupons.com offers the online version of the classic Sunday paper, including a wide variety of timely coupons. They have a user-friendly layout that makes it easy to browse, “clip” and print coupons. Other notable coupon sites include RetailMeNot.com and SmartSource.com

Price Search Bots

So if you have read some of our previous blogs, you might be familiar with the way search engines work and how easily they help individuals navigate the web, but does this apply to shopping? Absolutely. There are numerous search engines that are designed to scan the internet solely for the best prices. Google has a shopping feature that uses its trademarked algorithms to return the most accurate search results for the lowest prices.

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