Why go straight to one shop, when you can pop into 20 at the same time? Use a ‘shopbot’ and you can find the cheapest price on the web in 30 seconds. Do this for all online shopping and you could cut costs by 30% a year, especially if you use the host of other online shopping cost cutting techniques too.
What is a shopbot?
It may sound like a knicker buying fetish, but shopbots, or shopping robots, are special websites for finding the cheapest prices. The web is huge, so many people habitually nip to a familiar retailer, such as Amazon, to seek what’s wanted; yet instead, head to a shopbot, tell it what’s required, click on compare prices and you’ll find the product in the same amount of time but with a list of prices from lots of retailers.
So using shopbots, you can find the cheapest online shopping for a range of objects. This includes books, flowers, white goods, games, computer equipment, TVs and more.
How do they make money?
Shopbots tend to have commercial relationships with most of the shops they list, so click through to a retailer and it’s likely they either get paid per click or via a small percentage of whatever’s purchased. This in itself isn’t a problem, providing the results are presented fairly, without bias, and don’t add anything to the price you pay. Yet it does mean each shopbot may cover a different range of retailers.
The shopbot security bonus
The three major shopbots are all sizeable companies, which means they vet who is included. While there are never any guarantees, it does mean any company you find through a shopbot is, therefore more likely to be legit.
Which shopbot to use?
There are many shopbots out there, but the three big ones, with a wide range of goods, are Kelkoo*, Pricerunner* and Shopping.com*. For a small purchase; a book, CD or DVD, just using one for speed is fine. Though if it’s a bigger item use all three, as the coverage to get a wider spread of retailers is beneficial.
There are specialists too
Some niche sites focus on specific content, and are often less commercially driven, which means they have more options. These include Find-DVD, Bookbrain or Quaffersoffers (for wines). So they’re a good addition if you’re looking for specialised things.
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What is a shopbot?
- Always remember the delivery price.
Most shopbots will display the price including delivery, yet remember this is for a single item. Buy more than one thing from the same shop and often the delivery charge doesn’t increase; so if you’re buying a couple of things compare product prices alone. - The phrase “we've teamed up with”.This usually means “There's no comparison. Instead we're sending you direct to a retailer that pays us”. This is very common when shopbots link to financial product services – avoid it.
Online Shopping: Further tips to up the gain
- Use a Cashback site.
Cashback sites like Quidco or Topcashback* are specialist internet sites, which if you buy things at normal retailers through them, pay you extra Cashback on top. For example buy at Play.com through a cashback website, and you get the same stuff, at the same price, but up to 10% Cashback on top. Even better, I've had the Cashback-Sites Maximiser built, which visits them all and reveals which site pays the most for whichever retailer you chose. Read the full Best Cashback Sites article. - Don't miss out on the top bargains.
Many of the very best bargains are only available for a few days, so you have to keep on top of them. In the Shop But Don’t Drop and Grabbit While You Can forums thousands of MoneySavers report their best finds. Plus the very best of them are always included in the free weekly Martin Money Tips e-mail.
- Spend on a credit card for extra protection and cashback.
You may be surprised at this, yet don’t get hung up on credit cards being a ‘way to borrow’. Provided you pay the card off in full each month (preferably by Direct Debit to be sure) you won’t be charged interest (except with a few rare specific exceptions).
This means you can take advantage of two unique credit card properties. Firstly, buy something on a credit card, costing over £100, and you get an extra legal protection called ‘Section 75’. This means if the retailer goes bust, or there’s a problem, the credit card company is equally liable so you can get your cash back from it (see Consumer Rights article for more details).
It also means, pick the right credit card and you can earn up to 3% Cashback every time you spend (see Best Cashback Cards), which adds up to a huge amount over the year. - Price match.
Some high-street retailers will price-match internet prices if you push them. Print off your comparison result and take it into the shop. See if they’ll match the price (and, if you can, keep your thumb over the delivery cost…)
This is especially true of the many retailers that operate both online and in the high street. Often they’ll charge different amounts, yet print out their online price, and often they’ll give it to you in store. This way you can try on / feel / squeeze / sniff potential purchases, but get the internet price. - Use Discount Vouchers.
There’s a phenomenal growth of special codes that can get you discounts in various shops. There’s a full Discount Codes section of the Forum, where thousands of MoneySavers report all the legit codes they can find. Of course the best ones are also included in the Weekly E-mail. - Remember eBay.
Shopbots look at mainstream retailers, but of course they miss out some of the specialist stores that only sell their wares via internet auction site eBay*. Many of these sell new goods and are competitively priced when they do so, though do beware you’re getting the genuine schmatter (see Golden Rules Of eBay Shopping article). - Powerful tricks for shopping at Amazon.
Massive web store Amazon* almost needs a rule book for itself. One common mistake is to assume everything at Amazon is eligible for the ‘free delivery over £15’ deal, yet if it doesn’t state this at the top of the page, it isn’t. This is usually because while it looks like it, it’s not actually Amazon selling the goods but a third party company; worse still, the delivery on these goods can be £5 or £6 per product.
Yet there’s good news too. Did you know Amazon has a price promise, that if the price drops within 30 days of you buying a good you can claim the difference back? Plus if you’re close to that £15 free delivery limit, there’s a special web-tool that’ll find you a product to plug the gap (e.g. you need to spend 34p to save £2.75 delivery, it’ll find what to buy). For more details read my Four Tips To Cut Amazon Prices notes.
Don't be fooled into thinking Amazon Prime, its all-inclusive "free" one-day delivery package, will save you money. As you get free super saver delivery when you spend over £15 anyway you'd need to buy 34 DVDs or CDs, or 18 books costing under £15, one at a time to make the £49 annual cost worthwhile.
The internet means shopping around the world is possible; of course delivery costs and customs duty need including, but buy where the pound is strong and serious savings are possible, especially on branded goods and electronics (see the Buy From The USarticle for suggestions).
Where possible purchase with a credit not debit card, as Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act means if there's a problem, and the goods cost over £100, the card company is equally liable with the retailer if things go wrong. This is valuable extra protection as then rather than chasing the overseas company you can chase the card company (read more on Section 75 rights). When it comes to buying goods from overseas, it's just like buying goods when you're actually abroad, and therefore it's best to use one of the cheap specialist cards for spending overseas.- Improve internet security with a specialist card.
If you are worried about web-shopping or payment security in general, then there’s a special ‘Webcard’ available from internet bank Cahoot, which generates a unique code each time you pay for something – giving extra security. Read the full Cahoot Webcard article. - Check the legitimacy of websites.
While most people know to check for the ‘security padlock’ in the bottom right of a website while purchasing, that doesn’t actually mean the site itself is legitimate, just that the payment section is secure.
There’s no infallible way to check a websites legitimacy, but there are a few useful tips. As noted above, most sites that a shopbot links to are decent; though ensure the site lists a real as well as a virtual address; check out who owns a site using the Whois database; take a look on web ranking site Alexa.com to see a site’s worldwide web ranking - anything in the top 100,000 means it’s reasonably big; a good, though not foolproof indication of legitimacy.
Potential savings by using a shopbot add up. In five minutes I cut the cost of a specific Pentax digital camera down from £250, having gone to a camera retailer, to £113 and easy savings on the chart topping CDs and DVDs too. And that’s before incorporating the benefits of paying on a Cashback Credit Card or buying via a Cashback Site.
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| LINKS THAT HELP THIS SITE (all have a * in above article) (this has no impact on product or recommendation - see explanation below) Rpoints, Pricerunner, Topcashback, Shopping.com, eBay, Kelkoo, Edirectory, Amazon LINKS THAT DON'T HELP THIS SITE (please only use if necessary)Quidco, 123 Price Check, Checkaprice, Zencudo, Nextag, Pricegrabber, Comparisonhq, Bizrate, Comparison Magic, Find DVD, Bookkoob, Bookbrain, Reestit Mutton's Bargain Basement, Abcaz, Shopgenie, Shoppingcomparison, Fixture Ferrets, Mad about Bargains, Trolly Dolly, Quaffersoffers, PriceGuide UK, Mysupermarket, Whois Rpoints, Pricerunner, Shopping.com, TopcashbackKelkoo, eBay, Edirectory, Amazon Explanation Two types of contacts are listed. The first (which all have a * within the main body of the articles) help MoneySavingExpert.com stay ad-free and free to use, as they're ‘affiliated links' which invisibly take you usually via commercial price comparison services like Moneysupermarket, Uswitch or Find, which then pay this site. The second type doesn't help (and don't have a *). You shouldn't notice any difference, the links don't impact the product at all and the editorial line (the things I write) is NEVER impacted by the revenue. If it isn't possible to get an affiliate link for the best product, it is still recommended and still included in exactly the same way. For more details read how this site is financed. |