Uncommon Cents

To continue on the theme, when shopping for something that’s substantial enough to be worth buying on the Web (almost anything that I don’t need quickly and won’t accumulate a huge shipping charge), I work through a process:

1) Check out the usual suspects;

2) Use some shopping search engines to compare prices elsewhere;

3) Check sale Web sites for existing special pricing;

4) Check coupon Web sites for existing coupon discount codes;

5) Purchase using my credit card that would maximize my reward.

How would this apply in an actual example? Let’s consider my desire for a Nikon D40; for this case, let’s consider looking for a “body only” model, just to make things simpler.

First off, I check my usual suspects. These are companies I’ve bought from before due to their having prices I like; these would be places like Amazon, Apple, Overstock, Buy, and eBay (not really a company but more like a clearinghouse). I’ll run through these and make a quick list to see what prices are like.

Secondly, I’ll use shopping search engines. We’re talking sites like Nextag, Google Shopping, Shopper, and (in this case) DealCam. These sites let me do apples to apples comparisons on pricing like models–although these summaries need to be looked at very closely.

Third, I’ll check some of the sites that list sales; this would include DiscountCouponsGuide, DealMac, DealNews, TechBargains, FatWallet, and others. They might have a special that I don’t know about already, and in some cases they list recent sales to give me an idea on what’s a great price.

By this time I hope to have seriously narrowed down where I may be buying from. I may be down to between one and three stores where I may be considering my purchase.

At this point I’ll go ahead and check coupon sites like Rather-Be-Shopping, DealCoupon, CouponCabin, CurrentCodes, CouponMountain, FlamingoWorld, and tons of others to see if there’s a coupon code out there (let’s not forget our previous discussion on bacn) that could help me out.

Finally, I’ll consider which of my credit cards would be most advantageous to use for the purchase. I may want to get a free extended warranty, which would point me to my Amazon.com Visa–or if I’m ordering from Amazon, the triple point rewards of purchasing from them. Discover Card offers 5% cash back for some vendors, like Apple; sometimes certain credit cards offer discounts as well, like the American Express $100 off on $1000 purchase at the Apple Store for Business we mentioned earlier.

It’s an exhaustive, deliberate process that I go through to try to ensure I get as low a price as I can; that in and of itself is of a bit of a benefit (sometimes I decide that I just can’t afford whatever I’m pricing; sometimes something new comes along that’s better; and sometimes I just get distracted). But I hope by explaining the process I go through with shopping for best prices using the Web, it might help you spend less on your mail order purchases.

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