Ok.. We all love electronics.. If you dont have the passion that we do, then you might be on the wrong website. Yes I want the newest gadgets, newest computers, newest everything... Well believe it or not, money doesnt grow on trees, so here is a great article on how to get the best deal using online resources!
PROLOGUE
"Knowledge is power."
- Francis Bacon; Meditationes Sacræ.
"A penny saved, is a penny earned."
- Benjamin Franklin; Poor Richards Almanac.
These common idioms and quotes in many societies provide the basis for this
book. The contents will directly deal with offering knowledge to the reader to increase
your savings in your daily life.
We will explore in depth various time and money saving websites with detailed
examples to guide you through the use of these sites. Also, tips will be used to assist in
your search.
A little bit about us. Cramer Solutions, Ltd. Co. was created as a contractual
service company for small businesses in Houston by Christopher O. Cramer.
Mr. Cramer and his associates have been on the internet ever since the University of
Minnesota established an internet protocol called "Gopher" in 1991. We are actively
involved in the Houston small and medium business community doing a wide variety
of IT work and finder services of hard to find items for a basic charge.
This eBook is a compilation of our favorite websites and advanced tips to assist you in
saving money online.
DISCLAIMER
This eBook contains time sensitive information. We try to keep it as up to date as possible, but since we do not own the rights to
many of the websites listed we cannot control their content or changes in their policies.
GETTING STARTED
Alright, let's get going!
Before we start anything we will need a few items:
1. a computer with internet access
2. pen and paper
3. calculator
4. adaware ( Can Be Downloaded Free Here )
- This is used to remove possible conflicts and spyware/
malware, which can cause your computer to send personal data
to sites you do not want to be sent to
OK, we have everything. You will now need to install and run Lavasoft's Adaware.
Double click on your newly downloaded file: aawsepersonal.exe, then follow the
installation wizard.
Once you have finished the installation wizard, simply do a system by doing the
following:
Open Adaware
Click on the left hand side "Scan Now"
Click on the circle next too "Full System Scan"
Click "Next"
Wait for program to finish searching (takes 2 10 minutes)
After Search is finished two things can happen:
1. Says no files found, great! Simply close the application and you are ready
2. Says spyware was found, simply right click on the window showing the files,
left click on "select all objects", then click "next", and "OK"
Now, we have cleared any bad things that could have been on your PC and hopefully
stopped some pop ups if you had some .
A QUICK LIST
Here is a quick reference sheet of some very useful sites. I suggest you print this page
to assist with your search:
Price Searching Websites:
These sites assist you with the process of finding the best
price.
1. www.froogle.com
2. www.bizrate.com
3. www.mysimon.com
4. www.shopping.com
5. www.shopping.yahoo.com
6. www.pricegraber.com
7. www.dealtime.com
8. www.pricewatch.com (technology)
Review Websites:
These sites maintain a collection of individual and company
reviews of e-commerce businesses.
1. www.resellerratings.com
2. www.fatwallet.com/forums/retailerratings/
3. www.bizrate.com
4. www.epinions.com (this website reviews individual products)
5. http://search.bbb.org/search.html (Better Business Bureau's Official Website)
Coupon Websites:
These sites contain numerous coupon codes to save you money.
1. www.techbargains.com/coupons.cfm
2. www.slickdeals.net
3. www.google.com (a basic search with the stores name and the word "coupon"
yields tons of coupons.)
Cash Back Websites: These sites contain referral links where they give you money for
buying the item you want.
1. www.fatcash.com
2. www.ebates.com
In order to use Cash Back you must sign up for an account at www.paypal.com
LETS GO!
This section will talk about the easy three step process to save money.
1. Search for the best price.
2. Find reviews of the website with the product.
3. Hunt out those coupons and cash back.
Now what does this mean, and how does it apply to what we will do? This is just an
easy way to remember the sequence of events we will use. Some definitions we should
know are:
Reviews:
The old adage of "if it is too good to be true, than it probably is.", these
sites will assist you at finding out what websites are legitimate and which are shams.
Coupons:
Some a traditional cut out and take to the store, others are online
coupons that consist of numbers and letter which give you a discount when applied to
your online order.
Cash Back: Various sites get referral fees for someone going to their website, then
receive money when you click a link from their site that leads to another. When you
do this and buy something, websites will give you a percentage of their commissions.
The next sections will be longer and dealing with each of the three steps.
SEARCH FOR THE BEST PRICE
"It's not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It's the
customer who pays the wages."
- Henry Ford
This section will provide you with some very useful websites assisting you with your
search for various goods as well as examples of how to use them. Use a variety of
search engines since not all vendors are a part of some search engines.
www.froogle .com
www.froogle.com
Froogle.com is a beta (new and experimental) price search engine brought to you by
the good people at www.google.com . Basically, it works exactly like a normal search
engine. You input the product you are looking for and Froogle runs a large search for
it. The major difference is that it includes the name of the website, the price of the
product, the rating of the product/site and the ability to organize the page based on
ratings or low-> high prices of the product.
Here is an example of how to use froogle.com:
First, search for your product, the more specific the better. So if you have an idea of
what you want be sure to include the name and model number for better results. Here
we are simply searching for a "sony dvd player". Type what you are looking for in the
search bar, then simply hit enter or search:
OK now we have our results. With these results we can do a few things:
Click on the link of what we would like, the red box shows which website it will take
us too:
Sort by the lowest price by clicking under BEST MATCH and click Price: Low to
high, this will list the cheapest match first.
Find a specific model we want, in this case the Sony DVP-NS575P/S, and compare the
price for it with other vendor websites by clicking the red box:
Finally, we can view reviews of the product we wish to purchase by clicking the
"reviews" link below the picture of the product:
This is how you use Froogle.com.
*TIP* WRITE DOWN THE 4 LOWEST PRICED PLACES FOR THE PRODUCT AT
HAND, THIS WILL ASSIST US WHEN WE SEARCH FOR REVIEWS OF THE
WEBSITE SELLING THE ITEM.
www.bizrate.com
www.bizrate.com
Bizrate.com is another search engine based product finder. It uses a graphical tile
interface that allows you to find out information not only about the product, but about the
website as well. Also, if you are not sure what you want there is a side bar which can be
used to look for products. Here is the example:
Here we are searching for a "dyson vacuum"
After the search is finished we receive the following results:
We can sort our products in a variety of ways using the links that are inside the orange
boxes. For example, if you would like to see all of the Dyson vacuums that are less than
$430 you would click that link.
Also what is unique to Bizrate is it's integration of customer experiences in facial
expressions. There are three mail facial expressions: Blue Frown = Bad experience,
Yellow Non Expressive = Neutral Experience, Green Smile = Good Experience. You can
also read reviews by individuals by clicking on the face as well. This site TotalVac.com
receives a good rating with a green smile.
Now all you need to do is simply browse through and find some prices and stores you
like, and write them down!
*TIP* Open a notepad or word processing software on your computer, and copy and
paste the websites link to the product you would like to buy, this can assist when we get
to the coupons and cash back part!
www.mysimon.com
www.mysimon.com
MySimon.com maybe the new kid on the block, but they have tremendous awards to
back up their success including awards from Forbes Magazine. MySimon is a well
organized site that looks not only for the product you want, but the accessories for it as
well. Example time!
Here we are searching for an "apple ipod"
After the search is complete we have the following screens:
Here we see various iPods and their accessories. We can narrow our search by selecting
exactly what we want and eliminating the accessories. Simply click under "top
categories" MP3 Players.
OK, we have found that 20GB iPod we want. Now click "compare all prices" to get a
complete list of prices offered.
Here we see numerous sites offering the product. Another great aspect of MySimon is
that you can input your zip code and it will provide you with the shipping amount. Also,
there is a star rating of how good of an experience people have had shopping from the
website, Click on the shops with the lowest prices. Remember! Keep those links to the
product you want! This is vital for the cash back and coupon part.
Now you have seen three examples of how to use a price search engine. Since this may
become old for you, I will not provide any more examples since I would just be
reiterating myself and do not want to bore you. If you need more assistance feel free to
contact us at: info@cramersolutions.com with the website you need assistance with.
Here is a list of other price search engines you can look at:
www.shopping.com
www.shopping.yahoo.com
www.pricegraber.com
www.dealtime.com
www.pricewatch.com (For Computer and IT parts)
Next we will discuss the legitimacy of websites and how to find reviews and experiences
of other buyers. We cover this in order to protect you our buyer from fraudulent
companies.
GETTING THOSE REVIEWS!
This is a very important part of the book. With the anonymity of the internet it is
very easy to be swindled by crooks. Upcoming we will show you how to use specific
websites that contain a wealth of information regarding online sellers.
At this point open up your document containing the websites and prices from the
product you look for during the price searching part of this eBook. Just for the examples
we are looking at buying a Sony DVD Player Model# DVP-NS575P
www.resellerratings.com
www.resellerratings.com
ResellerRatings.com contains over 100,000 customer reviews and 6,000 merchants that
updates every day. The also offer a price search engine as well which is worth looking at
for a product. ResellerRatings.com is a very structured site that basis website scores and
reviews on actual buyers experiences from that site.
The scoring system is out of 10 points, 1 being the worst, 10 being the best, and 7.0 being
average. The scores are based on five aspects; price of products, shipping, likelihood of
future purchases, customer service, and ease of return.
Let's say we just used Froogle.com using the search words "Sony DVP-NS575P" and
found the three lowest priced sites that we have written down.
Now we open on internet browser and go to : www.resellerratings.com and see the
following:
The "Find a Store", we have highlighted with the red outline, is where we will type in
our stores. For this example we will use only two sites, make sure you check all your
sites though! The two sites are Erwincomp.com and NewEgg.com
First is Erwincomp.com with the lowest price of $73.95, and next to store name in the
red outlined box (see above) we input " erwincomp.com "
In a few seconds we see the following list of possible matches:
Here we see the website we are looking for which is #1, ERWINCOMP.COM . Now
click on the ERWINCOMP.COM to see the reviews and comments.
Here we see many details. At the very top we see Six Month Rating of 0.00, this means
there have been 0 reviews in the last six months. Below this is the "Lifetime Rating"
which is the actual rating of the website for as long as it has existed on
ResellerRatings.com. You can also see a wealth of information at the bottom including
contact information and payments, shipping, ordering, and returns. Because of the lack of
ratings in the last 6 months, and it's lifetime rating of 6.61 I am weary of this company.
We need to look at some customer reviews below:
Here we see the actual customer reviews of Erwincomp.com. As you can see there are 14
reviews for the site. Personally, sites with less than 30 reviews need further investigation.
I have included the first two reviews so that you could get used to seeing it and reading
through. After reviewing the rest of the reviews, the RISK is TOO great in our opinion to
purchase from this site.
**TIP: LOOK AT THE WEBSITES TOO! IF IT LOOKS BAD OR SHADY,
CHANCES ARE IT IS.**
Ok, let us now look at the second store NewEgg.com with the next lowest price of $75.88
Go back to the homepage of resellerratings.com and follow the previous steps of
searching for a store. After our search we get to the reviews of NewEgg.com which page
looks as so:
Here we see Customer satisfaction is a high 9.54 in the last six month and has awards
given by ResellerRatings.com for its outstanding service and products. We can also see
how NewEgg.com does with the five aspects (pricing, future buys, shipping, customer
service, and returns) and all are well above average. Wow! So far so good! Now let us
look at some customer reviews.
Here we see that there are over 7000 reviews for NewEgg.com:
With well over 50 Reviews, and incredibly high ratings, NewEgg.com should be your
choice. So, we have found a very reputable site for our next to lowest price.
ResellerRatings.com is a GREAT website and my personal #1 choice for reviewing
websites. All of the other review sites utilize the same search mechanism, please see the
information sheet (Page 4) on other websites that review resellers. Again if you need help
please contact us, you paid for this and our help! info@cramersolutions.com
1. http://search.bbb.org/search.html (Better Business Bureau's Official Website)
2. www.bizrate.com
3. www.epinions.com (this website reviews individual products)
COUPONS! COUPONS! COUPONS!
Here comes the saving you more money part!
Before we start, I highly suggest that you do the following:
1. Open a word document to copy and paste the coupon codes
2. If you use Internet Explorer, you may want to Install the Google Toolbar to
prevent pop ups ( http://toolbar.google.com/ )
The Google Toolbar blocks annoying pop ups you may experience while coupon
hunting.
Now here is a little background and what to expect in this chapter on online discounts.
You will encounter two types of online coupons.
1. Click 4 Coupon:
Click 4 Coupons are the most common. Basically, you
find a coupon offer on an external website for a shop you want a coupon for.
You click on that offer and you will be sent to the online shop you desire. Now,
when you are the shop as soon as you put an item that you want in your cart
the coupon will be applied! For ease of use in the upcoming examples we will
abbreviate these as "C4C".
2. Promotional / Coupon Codes:
This type of coupon has to be manually
typed into and applied by you. Most of the times when you are checking out of
a store there is a box that says "enter promo/coupon code" here. Type in your
code and then press the apply button if applicable. If this is a valid coupon code
your discount will be applied.
With background in hand and pop up blocked, we can get down to business!
****TIP: SOME ONLINE COUPONS / PROMO'S ARE REUSABLE, YOU
SHOULD KEEP A LIST OF THESE TO USE TIME AND TIME AGAIN**
A QUICK COUPON SITE LIST
With this list, I recommend you visit most of these sites and find a few to your liking
and bookmark them for future use.
Again, if you need any help please contact us at info@cramersolutions.com
The following is a list of the cream of the crop coupon sites, in no particular order,
that we have used and work great:
1. www.techbargains.com/coupons.cfm
2. www.slickdeals.net
3. http://www.couponcabin.com/
4. http://www.dealcoupon.com
5. http://www.couponsurfer.com
6. http://fatwallet.com/deals.php
7. http://www.techbargains.com
8. http://fatwallet.com/c/64/ (one time use coupons)
9. http://www.flamingoworld.com/
10. http://www.a2zdeals.com/
11. http://www.findsavings.com/
12. http://www.couponmountain.com/index.html
13. http://www.edealfinder.com/
14. http://www.dealofday.com/
15. http://www.couponparadise.com/
16. http://www.123comparecoupons.com/
17. http://www.currentcodes.com/
18. http://www.promocode.com/
19. http://www.coupon-kingdom.com/
20. http://www.bargainboardwalk.com/
21. http://www.naughtycodes.com/
22. http://forums.dealcatcher.com/forumid_2/tt.htm
23. http://www.all-coupons.com
24. http://www.dailyedeals.com
25. http://www.mycoupons.com
How to Navigate a Coupon Site
Most coupons sites are organized in the following ways:
1. Need to be searched for through the search engine on their site
2. Listed under the stores they are good for.
3. Listed alphabetically by the store
Let us look at a searchable coupon site MyCoupons.com
www.mycoupons.com
As you can see we have typed in the online shop Amazon.com, and will search for
coupons for it.
Once we click on "Get Coupons" button we see the following screen:
Here we see that there are over 447 coupons offered for Amazon.com.
We can also see a ranking system of 1 5 stars basically showing whether the coupon
is a good deal, ok deal, or not worth the hassle.
Now all you have to do is find the one that works for you, click on the link, and follow
the instructions on what to do! Simple and saves you tons of money!
Next on the block is navigating a site with coupons listed under a store name, for this
we will look at TechBargains.com ( http://www.techbargains.com/coupons.cfm )
When we open this page we see the following screen:
Here we see the following vital information.
Company: what online shop the coupon can be used for
Offer:
the actual value of the coupon and whether it is a C4C or code we must
enter
Expirations: the date or time when the online coupon expires
For this example let us say we found a brand new sharp over the range $165
microwave from Amazon.com, and now want a coupon for it.
We browse through the "Amazon" companies and see what is offered relative to our
needs. Oh! I spy a $25 off $125 in Kitchen and Housewares code! We now copy and
paste the code: JANUARYKHBBE into our open word document for future use/
Now click on the "amazon" or visit www.amazon.com and do a search for the specific
microwave you want.
Ah there it is!
Now, click the big yellow button that says "Add to Shopping Cart" on your right
hand side. After we click we receive this screen on the right:
Perfect! Now click the yellow "Proceed to Checkout" button.
Now we are at a login screen (this will not show if you are already signed in). Simply
choose which you are, a New Customer and follow the easy steps, or a Returning
Customer where you put in your login name and password and press enter.
We have now created and logged into our new account. Here is how you apply a
coupon:
**TIP REMEMBER TO CLICK FREE
SHIPPING ON AMAZON.COM
ORDERS**
Here we copy and paste our code we received
From TechBargains.com , now hit apply.
All Done! Now simply finish your check out by hitting "place your order" and in 2-5
days enjoy your new microwave and the $28.940 you just saved! ($25 for coupon and
$3.94 for shipping)
**TIP ON AMAZON.COM ORDERS, YOU CAN USE THE FOLLOWING
WEBSITE TO APPLY FOR THEIR CREDIT CARD AND RECEIVE
ANOTHER $20.00 - $30.00 OFF**
Sign Up for Amazon.com Credit Card and Receive $20.00 - $30.00 Off
Thanks for the feedback everyone! From the feedback I have included this new
section on the Amazon.com Credit Card.
All you have to do is click this link:
Sign Up for Amazon.com Credit Card and Receive $20.00 - $30.00 Off
Now we see the following site:
Simply click sign up, and fill out all your pertinent information that the site requests.
Now, when you are approved simply put something in your cart that is over $20.00
and checkout WITH your Amazon.com card number. On your billing statement you
will see the $20.00 deducted.
After this you never have to use your card again if you prefer not too!
Enjoy the free $20.00
This will finish up our chapter on coupons. If you need help navigating a coupon site
or finding a coupon, please let us know!
info@cramersolutions.com
CASH BACK ON YOUR PURCHASES!
Let us start by introducing what "Cash Back" is and how it works.
Cash Back: Websites that send you to a shop get something called a referral fee of a
certain percent of what you buy. Cash Back is when these referring websites GIVE
BACK some of that referral income to you, the buyer, in the form of cash.
Cash back is the least known product of online shopping and good cash back websites
are few and far between. Coming up, we will guide you to legitimate high paying
percentage cash back sites and what you need to do to get your money into your
hands.
Before we start you need the following:
1. Have finished price searching
2. Have finished coupon searching
3. Have the website you will be purchasing from
4. Create a PayPal account:
Click here to create a PayPal account or log on to an existing one.
The reason for creating a PayPal account is in order for the website to automatically
send your money directly to your bank account. DO NOT WORRY! PayPal is
owned by eBay and is secure and they DO NOT spam.
Next up we will be looking at some cash back sites, the following are the cream of the
crop for cash back websites that we use daily.
www.fatwallet.com
www.ebates.com
www.fatwallet.com
www.fatwallet.com
When we visit FatWallet.com we see the following:
We want to take up the offer of cash back so we click the tab "Cash Back" that is
highlight in red with a box and arrow.
The next screen looks like this:
Click on the red boxed area that says "Sign Up"
Here we input a Nickname for the Cash Back and our Email Address.
PLEASE NOTE: it must be a legitimate email address because FatWallet.com will
send you your password through an email link
Check your email, and click the link specified and follow all directions to finish your
new account.
OK, all is done now we go back to the "Cash Back" tab from FatWallet.com
We now click on the "Quick Start Guide" which will assist you with setting up, and
earning cash back.
The Quick Start Guide will pop up in a new window so you may have to turn your
pop up blocker off. The start guide will guide you through every step of the process.
Here are the directions we like to use:
1. In an open word document, have the website, exact item you want, and any
applicable coupons.
2. Go to www.fatwallet.com/cashback
3. Find the merchant which you want to buy from
4. Click on the merchant from FatWallet.Com `s website
5. Leave the new window open and read what FatWallet.com says
6. Search for your item, and add it to your cart
7. Apply your Coupon
8. Checkout and you are done!
FatWallet.com will than notify you VIA email when the merchant tells them what
you bought from them, and FatWallet will ask you to withdraw your cash!
LETS REVIEW!
You have learned how to save a drastic amount of money while shopping online; now
let's review what we did.
First, we used various price search engines to find the four (4) best prices and wrote
the websites down.
Second, we used review sites to make sure that the websites are legitimate
Third, we hunted down those incredible coupons!
Fourth, we found our merchant on a cash back site, logged in, and visited the
merchant from there.
Finally, we found our product from that merchant, added to our cart, applied our
coupons, and checked out.
Great! Now you are saving TONS of money.
For example remember that Microwave we bought from Amazon.com? (Pages 23-25)
The starting price was $169.99 and after a search determined it was the best and most
legitimate. We created a word document and wrote down the product and the website we
wish to purchase it from.
So, we then visited MyCoupons.com and found a coupon for $25.00 off all housewares
from Amazon.com. We copy and pasted the coupon code into the word document as
well.
Following this, we login to Amazon.com and used the link included in this eBook to sign
up for an Amazon.com Credit Card to use on this purchase in order to save ANOTHER
$20.00 off.
Now we visit either ebates.com or fatwallet.com, and log in to our account. Next we find
Amazon.com on the cash back list. At the current time of this eBook we see a 2% cash
back from Amazon.com on FatWallet.com.
Finally, we find our product, add it to our cart, apply our coupon and free shipping, and
checkout! Within a few weeks you will be notified of your cash back waiting for you!
So, here is the total saved:
Original Price + Shipping:
$173.48
-
$25.00
Coupon
- $20.00
Discount for Credit Card
-
$03.94
Free
Shipping
-
$02.49
2%
Cash
Back
--------------
TOTAL:
$122.05
SAVINGS: $51.43 or 30% Off !
ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE!
Now you can put these skills to work for you in your everyday purchasing of online
items! This is why you can save THOUSANDS a year!
Conclusion
This eBook may be ending, but your journey of online savings is never ending.
Cramer Solutions, Ltd. Co. hopes you enjoyed this eBook and have been given a great
deal of knowledge to save money. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns,
please email us at info@cramersolutions.com
Work Cited / Bibliography / Webliography
All websites names and identities are trademarked and copyrighted by their respective
owners. We do not control these, websites and they may change at any time.
1. www.froogle.com
2. www.bizrate.com
3. www.mysimon.com
4. www.shopping.com
5. www.shopping.yahoo.com
6. www.pricegraber.com
7. www.dealtime.com
8. www.pricewatch.com
9. www.fatwallet.com
10. www.amazon.comwww.resellerratings.com
11. www.fatwallet.com/forums/retailerratings/
12. www.bizrate.com
13. www.epinions.com
14. http://search.bbb.org/search.html
15. www.techbargains.com/coupons.cfm
16. www.slickdeals.net
17. http://www.couponcabin.com/
18. http://www.dealcoupon.com
19. http://www.couponsurfer.com
20. http://fatwallet.com/deals.php
21. http://www.techbargains.com
22. http://fatwallet.com/c/64/
23. http://www.flamingoworld.com/
24. http://www.a2zdeals.com/
25. http://www.findsavings.com/
26. http://www.couponmountain.com/index.html
27. http://www.edealfinder.com/
28. http://www.dealofday.com/
29. http://www.couponparadise.com/
30. http://www.123comparecoupons.com/
31. http://www.currentcodes.com/
32. http://www.promocode.com/
33. http://www.coupon-kingdom.com/
34. http://www.bargainboardwalk.com/
35. http://www.naughtycodes.com/
36. http://forums.dealcatcher.com/forumid_2/tt.htm
37. http://www.all-coupons.com
38. http://www.dailyedeals.com
39. http://www.mycoupons.com
40. www.fatcash.com
41. www.ebates.com
"Tips and Tricks to Saving Money Online"© 2004-2005 published with permission from cramersolutions.com
Copyright Information:
Cramer Solutions, Ltd. Co.
2210 W. Dallas St. STE #742
Houston, TX 77019
Houston, TX 77019
Any reproduction, selling, copying material, or use for an individual or company gain
besides Cramer Solutions, Ltd. Co. will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law
which may include lawsuits. |
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