{"id":6445,"date":"2009-03-06T19:20:36","date_gmt":"2009-03-06T13:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/?p=6445"},"modified":"2020-04-16T13:00:53","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T07:30:53","slug":"save-money-buying-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2009\/03\/save-money-buying-online\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Save Money when Buying Online"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Recession is here — and naturally, I wanted to start saving money<\/strong>. You might be thinking about it too. I figure saving money involves one of two things — either making more money to match my expenses, or spending less money on said expenses.<\/p>\n

Who ever thought that buying stuff online would be the key to spending less money<\/strong>, right? Here are three factors that make buying online that much more fantastic.<\/p>\n

1. Used Alternatives<\/h2>\n

Sites like eBay.com, Kijiji.com, and Craigslist.com are gaining steam in popularity due to their “inexpensive<\/strong>” nature. I would think that even during a non-recession period of time, many still flood to these sites to find a good deal — after all, used goods are typically no worse<\/strong> at their functions than new products (I would be careful of what condition they’re in though).<\/p>\n

Also, Craigslist.com offers buyers opportunities to meet with sellers<\/strong> before the actual transaction to see the actual product and such, and even feel it and test it out sometimes (it depends on the seller and the differences in regions — I know up in here in Canada, we can drive to the same mall and rendezvous there).<\/p>\n

I’ve been looking at getting a Sony Ericsson k850 for a while, and I’ve been able to scrounge up some good bargains. Typically, on Rogers.ca, it would go for $469.99 without a contract. On Craigslist.com in Toronto, I’ve been able to find a K850 brand new going for no less than $340. That’s almost 30% off (actually it’s closer to 27%, to be precise) — resulting in savings of $130. Not bad — groceries for a month?<\/p>\n

If you’re not down with used (or new) alternatives from merchants on these websites, there’s still a couple of options left.<\/p>\n

2. Deals \/ Coupons<\/h2>\n

There are tons of websites that offer cheap products <\/strong>— usually way off MSRP. Typically, these sites can be on the “sketchy” side — so I’d suggest reviewing them (just do a quick Google search of “xyz store experiences<\/strong>” — replace “xyz store” with the name of the website’s store or the URL of the website).<\/p>\n

Markways.com is offering the K850 for $329.99 at the time of writing. Not a bad deal — even cheaper than the Craigslist alternative! Markways has also been known to offer coupons on those special days<\/strong> — like Father’s Day of 2008, and I also believe that you will be pleasantly surprised if you enter “redflagdeals<\/strong>” when checking out at Markways (I haven’t checked out yet, so I can’t exactly say).<\/p>\n

But how does one go about finding these affordable products?<\/p>\n

3. Price Comparison Sites<\/h2>\n

You’d be surprised at the amount of price comparison sites out here on the web. Price comparison websites<\/strong> typically keep tabs on products from different stores. More importantly, they keep tabs on prices and specials from certain stores — so it’ll be easy to compare them all in one single location.<\/p>\n

I’ve amassed an original list of 77 different price comparison sites from around the world. I recently updated it to 80.<\/p>\n

4. Remember, Only when you have to…<\/h2>\n

I’m not saying that you should spend like normal. It’s still a recession (or The Recession). And so, spend only on what you absolutely need to<\/strong>. I’m not an advocate of consumerism, but I do hope to help consumers like myself save money on the necessities (like cell phones, batteries, peripherals — and the like). I mean, when things break, I usually find it easier just to replace it rather than repair it<\/strong> (it might be cheaper in the long run, because of Moore’s Law).<\/p>\n

Guest author Herbert Lui blogs at CutEdge.org about tech advice, resources, and reviews for the consumer, that will help you buy smarter, think smarter, and know more about products. Got a tip to share, you can also write a guest article<\/a> on QOT.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Recession is here — and naturally, I wanted to start saving money. You might be thinking about it too….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-6445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips","tag-guest-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}