The Essentials of Savvy On-Line Shopping
You worked hard for you money and you think you have found the very best deal, but you may still be paying more than you have too, unless you use an effective on-line shopping strategy. In this article you will learn how I maximize my savings and how you can too.
The first step to getting the very best deal on your on-line purchases is to use what I call a "shopping portal" such as Ebates or ShopAtHome or MrRebates. Between these three shopping portals you can find just about every major retailer imaginable listed.
What is nice about about using the shopping portals is that they pay you for shopping through them and you do not pay a higher price or any fees for shopping through them. The shopping portals make their money from the retailers for bringing you to their on-line store. You get your savings in the form of a Cash Back rebate that is placed into your Ebates or ShopAtHome or MrRebates account automatically after you make your purchase. You can expect to get anywhere from 1% up to 30% Cash Back depending on the store that you shop at. Ebates runs a promotion everyday called "Daily Double" where they double the amount of Cash Back you will earn by shopping at the featured store.
I would suggest that if you do have an account with Ebates or ShopAtHome or MrRebates that you sign up for a free account with all of them now so you'll be ready when the time comes to go shopping. Each one of them offers a sign-up bonus, with Ebates offering a nice $10 gift card (if you don't see the offer please contact Ebates and they will assist you).
The second step involves using the first step to purchase discounted gift cards for the stores that you want to shop at on-line or in-store. There are a number of on-line resellers of discounted retail gift cards that offer from 3% up to 35% OFF the face value of the gift card. Depending on which one you shop at you will earn Cash Back for your gift card purchase.
For instance if you shop through MrRebates to purchase a discounted gift card from GiftCards.com you will earn a $1.00 Cash Back rebate from MrRebates.
Buying Tip: buy one discounted gift card per order and get a $1.00 Cash Back rebate for each gift card you purchase.
Here are the most well known and popular sites for buying, selling and trading gift cards. Many of the gift cards are available in both the traditional form that they mail to you and in an the electronic form that is emailed to you. The traditional gift card you receive in the mail can be used both on-line and in-store. The electronic versions can only be used for on-line purchases.
Another very nice feature about these sites is that they do not charge you any fees for buying a discounted gift card and they offer free shipping. Another important feature is the gift cards do not expire and there are no inactivity fees to be concerned about.
I encourage you to visit each site and see the variety of discounted gift cards that they have available. I will caution that if you see a gift card that you think you might want to buy that you buy it right away because the inventory turns over very quickly and you might miss out on a bargain.
The third step in maximizing your savings is to use a credit card that pays you Cash Back for making a purchase. I use a Chase INK VISA credit card for most of my purchases because the card pays me 3% Cash Back on all my purchases.
So as you can see if you use this simple strategy you can really save on your on-line purchases.
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FrugalFather
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