The Internet is a great place for shoppers, it allows an unlimited number of suppliers compete for our dollars, what translate in massive discounts for us to find. When the economy is rather bad every dollar count so we, as customers, need to be ever more careful about how we spend our hard earned dollars. Here are some tips for how to shop smarter online.

•Find product reviews. Product reviews are a great way to find out what other buyers have to say about the product you are looking for. Nowadays on the net it is possible to find almost any product or service review. Be skeptical on your search, look for those not too positive reviews, the ones that tell you the cons as well as the pros.

•Compare Shops. Once you’ ve decide what product or service you want to buy, the next steps is to find the best people to buy it from. Keep in mind that sometimes the face value of a product is not the only variable to track in order to get the best deal possible. Shipping cost and availability should be part of the equation as well. For example, if dealer "A" has the lowest price but is charging shipping cost and also is located on the other side of the world, it might be a good idea to check dealer closer to you or those who offer free shipping.

•Trustworthy sites. Often when searching for a product online, specially if a generic or one on high demand, thousand of unknown retailer will pop up on the search results. As a rule of thumb, stick to the big players like amazon or ebay, they are likely to have the best deal you will find, but sometimes the bargains are somewhere else and then you need to find out how trustworthy is the retailer you are planing to deal with.

Check for associations, good retailer sites will often have association banners in their pages to ensure customers that their deals are legitimate. These are some of the most popular; "BBB reliability program", "Hacker Safe" and "Verisign Secure". Chances are that sites with these emblems are secure and trustworthy to deal with. Have a look at their about page. See what the company is all about, what are their policies, features and history. If they not bother to give you that information, why would you give them your money? Do they have a return policy? Reputable retailers stand by their products and offer customers the possibility to return them if they are not totally satisfied. If the return policy in restricted or non existence, you might want to shop somewhere else.

•Find coupons. After all the research done, you feel quite confident you found the best deal you could get. Well, think again. There is one more thing you can do to before click the purchase bottom. Find some coupons. Many websites publish coupons from companies who want to promote their product giving away discount for you to take advantage from. These are some of the most popular coupons directories out there; fatwallet.com - dealcatcher.com - couponcabin.com. Some of these site contain coupons posted by other user so beware that some of them might be expired or invalid, but believe me, they are worth the time spend searching them.

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