The onward march of technological innovation has become a quickstep in recent years. There has been a fundamental shift away from the face-to-face retail of brick-and-mortar stores, and towards a new kind of convenience: the online shop. According to Pew Research, 85% of Americans now own a smartphone; so it’s no wonder that e-commerce has become a predominant way of shopping for everything from groceries to online games and beyond.
The sheer choice afforded by internet connectivity can be confusing for online shoppers both new and old, as good deals and potential savings become harder to find through the noise. The following suggestions represent smart ways that consumers can pick through online markets and find the best deals and discounts that work for them.
Deal Aggregators & Price Comparison Sites
One of the most useful online tools to help consumers find the best prices for products comes in the form of the deal aggregator or price comparison website. Third-party portals like become.com and shopping.com use an API to scour relevant shopping sites for sales information about products related to a search function, returning a list of prices for the same product from different sites. You can then decide where best to place your purchase. These sites are particularly useful for sorting through Amazon and Best Buy listings, but online deal aggregators exist for all manner of different markets – chief among them is the gaming industry.
For example, the online casino industry has seen significant growth, with a new and vibrant market of web-based casino gaming options available to consumers. Read the full article by Bonusfinder to see how deals aggregators like Bonusfinder US pull together comprehensive lists of online casino deals by state; for example, if you’re based in New Jersey you can find a state-specific list of casino sites offering free spins and deposit-match bonuses. Similarly, with PC gaming also growing in popularity, comparison sites like gocdkeys.com, recommended by AlternativeTo have become instrumental for gamers. These comparison sites have allowed them to find the best price for digital gaming titles between major distribution platforms and independent storefronts.
Browser Apps and Widgets
But relying solely on price comparison sites can lead you to miss out on other clever ways to bring down the cost of items purchased online. Indeed, there are web-based applications and widgets you can download and install directly to your search engine, commonly known as “extensions”. If you’re not familiar with this term, How to Geek does a brilliant job of explaining exactly what extensions are and how to safely install them. Popular browser extensions like Honey and Pouch can save money on purchases by scouring the internet for discount codes, which you can then apply to your online shop before you reach the digital checkout. Other extensions can even offer cashback on purchases with repeated use, creating additional savings on top of applied discounts.
These tech-based solutions are some of the most effective ways in which you can save money on online purchases – but of course, they only scratch the surface. There are many little tips and tricks that could help you save a penny here or there, from loyalty-based discounts with certain portals to using third-party survey sites to earn vouchers. But for the average online shopper, the above will more than suffice for finding the perfect deals and discounts.
