How To Track Down The Very Best Prices ~ TheItMom.com: Coupon and Freebie Deals

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As we approach the holiday shopping season, I’m sure some of you have already started building a list of items that you want, while others of you may be dreading the task. Finding great online deals with the deepest discounts can be stressful, time-consuming, and a bit overwhelming. But there are a number of options to help you, depending on your preference – if you want to find those items quickly, or if you’re willing to wait for the best deals. To purchase that perfect gift at the best price, we’ve made a list of search tools that can help you save money on any product you want.

Price-tracking sites

If you’re willing to wait for the right moment to buy at the lowest possible price, then the new trend-tracking sites were designed with you in mind!

	ZingSale is probably the best of the lot, and covers 19 categories including apparel, automotive, toys, office, groceries, and more. It monitors the web for the best price on your item, tracking a 60-day price history, and notifies you with an email alert as soon as it goes on sale. You can either search for items to see a list of stores with the best price today, or sign up for email alerts when the price of the item drops by 10% or reaches a target price you specify. I found it very easy to use.
	Decide.com is another new site that helps you decide if the moment and the price are both right to buy. It uses historical pricing data in addition to textual analysis of news content to predict the best time to buy. So far it’s limited to TVs, laptops, cameras, and phones. You type in the desired product to get advice on whether you should buy now or wait, and if a new model will be coming out soon.
	Shopobot is still in beta, and tracks price changes at 14 online retailers for cameras, computers, video games, electronics, home theater, personal audio, and books. When you choose an item, you’ll see a graph of price changes over time, with advice on whether to buy or follow the item and wait for an alert.

Instant gratification

If you’d prefer to search for the best available price when you’re ready to buy and make your purchase right away, the design of these sites provides instant results.


	Flit was designed in 2009 initially to make online shopping easier for people with limited or impaired typing skills. At this site you enter a search once and use the same term in all your favorite stores. This single-click search spans over 275 brands in more than 30 categories including fashion, home goods, jewelry, electronics, sports and gourmet foods. A visual search trail at the bottom of the page shows the last 12 stores you visited, and you can use a Store Jotter function to mark stores that you liked.
	PriceGrabber has an old-fashioned interface that lets you search the products without signing up, but you have to create an account if you want to get any alerts. If you do choose to sign up, you’ll see local deals as well.

Visual Search technology

Sometimes it’s easier to find what you want by looking at images than to try and come up with the right search term.

Like.com was the first site to offer visual search in 2006, and has since been acquired by Google. It allows you to search by detail, color, shape, or pattern match. It has the best interface of all the visual search engines, because you can look for the items you want using a combination of images and text. It offers a range of clothing and fashion accessories from US brands and retailers, and fortunately there are good filtering options to further reduce the number of results.

Summary

Which methods you find most useful depends entirely on whether you want to find the items and buy them on the spot, or if you’re willing to take advantage of the extra features of the trending sites that offer purchase advice and email alerts when the prices drop. If you’ve ever bought the latest gadget, only to learn a week later that the price has dropped, you should give these sites a try. You may be pleasantly surprised at the results. For everything from TVs and video games to clothing and shoes, you can find the best time to buy.