Crowd control via online shopping
December 20, 2007 by lifeafterbaby
If you’re like me and the thought of trying to take three kids to the mall by yourself or trying to decide which cart at Target will hold all your kids without having to be bungee-corded together (because, in my estimation, Target doesn’t have kid-friendly carts) sends you into a world of panic, welcome to the worldwide web of shopping. All by yourself. Wearing glasses, holey socks, with morning coffee breath and no bra, if you so choose.
If you think you can only get good deals using coupons, opening up new charge accounts, hitting sales, and during early-bird or night-owl specials, you’re wrong. There’s a lot to be had for a very little online.
If you’re shrewd, you can get just as good– if not better– of a bargain online. Bonus–you don’t have to waste any of your own gas, find a good parking spot, bundle up kids and click 3 car seats worth of buckles, or stand in line for an agonizing 27 minutes before realizing you left your wallet in the car.
Here are some things I have done to get great online deals this year:
- Take advantage of Free Shipping if you can. If there’s isn’t free shipping on a certain site, Google “Free Shipping coupon code _____(name of store)”, and it’s likely one will pop up. Last year I only wanted one item, but you had to spend$100 to get free shipping. I read the return policies, which stated that I could return merchandise to any retail store, so I added all kinds of fun things to try on to get me up to $100. When my package arrived, I had a little fashion show, then returned all the items except the one I had meant to purchase.
- Google coupon codes for free shipping, extra % off, extra $ off, or free items with purchase. You can also search coupon code sites like Current Codes, Coupon Cabin or Fat Wallet. In addition to getting an extra $5 off a sale item I ordered from Victoria’s Secret, I also got a FREE Best of the Spice Girls CD and FREE lip gloss!
- Compare prices using Bizrate, Shopzilla, or NexTag to find the best price on an item before you buy it. For instance, Shrek the Third (X Box 360) game costs $49.99 from K B Toys, but you can get it new on Amazon.com for $8.74 plus $3.99 shipping. That’s almost a 75% price difference!
- This is the second year we’ve used Vista Print to make photo desk calendars for our families. They are a special, personal gift for under $10 per family.
- Get FREE stuff. My Michigan Tightwads group alerted me to some free items on Buy.com. By using Google Checkout you get $10 toward your purchase. If you can find an item for $10 with free shipping, you’ve got yourself a free item! We ordered a CD, 2 USB flash drives, and a SD card and paid $0. (Because between the two of us we had 4 Google accounts and could take advantage of this deal 4 times)
Be selective. Be smart. Be saavy. Be snug.
