Cheap Online Shopping Shopbots & more tricks to slash costs

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, causing many to only check prices at familiar retailers; 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.

Shopbots can find the cheapest online deals for a range of items, including 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 generally means companies listed are more likely to be legit than those you might find by googling alone.

Speedily find the cheapest price

It's possible to speedily slash the cost of purchases just by knowing where to go.

Search THE BEST shopbots instantly

Shopbots whizz to lots of retailers to find the cheapest price online. Yet these comparison sites don�t all list the same retailers, so only use one and you might miss a top price.

So to increase savings we built a special website, MegaShopBot.com, to find the cheapest books, CDs, DVDs, video games, electricals or anything else. It can search multiple shopbots at once, and crucially, it automatically picks the best bots in each category for you.

We regularly research which comparison sites give the cheapest prices, and tweak the Megashopbot so it knows which to look at to get you the best result. Click the image below, then enter the details of what you're after to get started.

We include all the main comparison sites but you can suggest other comparisons to include. While we'll endeavour to include all good ones, there are lots out there which don't have the same wide-ranging coverage and have been sidelined for that reason.

Watch out for these tricks

Shopbots are mega useful but there are a few things to watch out for:

• 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.

Compare prices on your mobile

It�s possible to compare prices wherever you are, via your mobile handset � a big boon if you�re out shopping and spot a digital camera you like the look of. You can now compare prices on any handset, but it's easiest & cheapest if you've a phone which has web or WAP access. Newer, phone-specific tools make it even easier, but only if you've got the right handset.

• Kelkoo: mobile edition. Kelkoo offers a specially designed version of its site you can check on your mobile. Just go to kelkoo.co.uk on your mobile's web browser, or, if that doesn't work, type in http://m.kelkoo.co.uk/.

• Got a Google Android phone? Try ShopSavvy. If your phone runs Google's Android software, you can use the excellent ShopSavvy application. This takes things a step further by using the camera to read barcodes, then grabbing all the best prices from Google Shopping. What's more, it'll let you save searches to your wishlist, then cleverly inform you whenever there's a price drop.
  

• Got an iPhone/iPod Touch? Try Twenga. iPhone/iPod Touch owners can take advantage of Twenga, a free application downloadable from the iTunes App Store. Currently its functionality leaves a bit to be desired; many searches return a mass of cheap eBay listings which you'll need to scroll through to find the cheapest 'new' prices. However, it's likely accuracy will improve in future updates so it's worth a punt.
  

How much does it cost?

None of the services above charge, though your mobile provider will charge you for using the internet on your phone. Most providers charge based on the amount of data you download; others have bundles that where you pay a fixed charge for as much browsing as you like. Typically, using these services will cost just a few pence each time, or nothing if you've data access bundled with your contract.

Online Shopping: Further tips to up the gain

• Use a Cashback site.

  Cashback sites like Topcashback* or Quidco* 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 forum boards 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.

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• Use Discount Vouchers.

  There�s a phenomenal growth of special codes that can get you discounts in various shops; check out the daily-updated Shopping Vouchers deals list where you can find a host of money off vouchers for the big high street and online retailers. Also, one day sales (where all goods instore are slashed by, say, 20%) are becoming more popular and may well undercut the cheapest online prices, so check the One Day Sales list too. Of course, all the top picks will make it into the Weekly E-mail as well.

• 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 them 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 costing over �100 on a credit card, 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 the Section 75 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.

• 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 schmatta (see eBay Buying Secrets article).
  

• Buying from overseas is often cheaper.

  The internet means shopping around the world is possible; of course delivery costs and customs duty need including, but buy when the pound is strong serious savings are possible, especially on branded goods and electronics (see the Buy From The US article 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 and Consumer 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. Read the Cheap Travel Money 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 website's 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 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.

P owerful Amazon shopping tricks

Massive web store Amazon* almost needs a rulebook for itself. Amazon gives free 3-5 day �super saver� delivery on nearly all purchases. (It used to have a min. �5 spend to get free P&P;, but got rid of this rule in Oct �09). When you check out, be sure to tick the �super saver� delivery box, as the default delivery option is expensive 1-2 days first class.

• Check your item qualifies for free delivery.
  
  Some Amazon purchases do have a delivery charge. If it doesn�t state �Your order qualifies for free delivery� at the top of the page, it doesn�t. This is usually because the goods are from a third party, via 'Amazon Marketplace'. Worse still, the delivery on these goods can be �5 or �6 per product.

• Don't bother with Amazon Prime.
  
  Don't be fooled into thinking Amazon Prime, its all-inclusive "free" one-day delivery package, will save you money. Since you get free 3-5 day super saver delivery anyway, you'd need to be really desperate to get all your dvds & books fast, and still buy an awful lot of them, to make the �49 annual cost worthwhile. Yet that doesn't mean you should avoid its frequent offers of a free 1-month Amazon Prime trial; just make sure you cancel in time.
  

• Set your own price for Amazon items.
  
  There�s a clever tool where instead of hunting for Amazon deals, the bargains you want come to you. Simply tell Zeezaw the max price you want to pay for any Amazon item, and it emails you when the price drops to that amount.

The size of the saving

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.