by Ysabel J. Doran

Created on: February 14, 2008

If you swear by consignment stores and yard sales as great places to find bargains, and if a table full of trinkets at a swap meet quickens your pulse, you may want to turn your frugal eye to the world of on-line shopping. The bounty of good deals on the Internet will make you swoon.

E-commerce has reinvented the way that we shop, putting an unprecedented selection of goods at our fingertips, and saving savvy on-line shoppers impressive sums on their e-purchases, and untold hours of about-town driving.

eBay and Amazon.com are the reigning monarchs of auction and reseller websites. (Also look at some challengers like ePier.com and Bidville.com) The rewards to be reaped on these sites have been proved, but you may miss some of the satisfaction of ferreting out your own bargains in these large emporiums. So, we've sniffed out a couple less talked about on-line money saving techniques:

* Look past page one of your search engine results; and use price comparison websites:

If you know how to type the description of your intended purchase into your search engine, you can easily find what you are looking for on the first page of search results; but by clicking over to page two or three, you could find unexpected savings.

For instance, the major electronics retailers (Circuit City, Best Buy) all have on-line websites, but the prices are usually the same as in the store. We found MySimon.com and MrDealio.com (on page three of our search for "MP3 players"). These sites will show you side by side the prices of major brand electronics at all the major retailers. You can quickly pounce on a sale price. Just click the retailer link and buy your item directly.

Also look at ResellerRatings.com which, you guessed it, rates the resellers like Amazon.com. You'll see price comparisons and consumer reviews. Once again, just click and buy.

* On-line shopping is good for "comfort shopping" too:

The traditional thrift store browsing/buying experience is available on the Internet at www.gone-tomorrow.com (Once In a Blue Moon On-Line Thrift Store) a virtual thrift and antique store, complete with collectible glassware, vintage clothing and linens and valuable antiques. On websites of this sort you will see large clear pictures of articles you are considering for purchase, along with a description. Gone-tomorrow.com offers a reassuring thirty day return policy and guarantee of product condition.

* Waste not, want not. On-line frugality does not stop with your pocketbook:

"Reduce, reuse, recycle"

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