Late night shopping

The bizarre unpredictability of the British weather recently is a great reason to revisit the old hat subject of online shopping. Been there, done that, got the receipt? Found it's no better than trawling the high street?

Well, even in our current temperate weather, you may find there are still savings and fun to be had on the jolly old web, as well as not having to stand in a queue behind ten people with anemone fingers and inordinately huge purchases.

Better still, we can guarantee you wouldn't find any of these available in your average high street: check out "Who Would Buy That?" - a comprehensive guide to retail oddities on the web, including a Boy George nightlight, the opportunity to name a child (!) and faces for trees. (Warning: some of these may scare the living daylights out of you.)
Who Would Buy That?

Also available to kitsch-loving surfers are these incredible animal costumes for pets. Yes, you too can make your beloved kitty look like a cartoon frog. No prizes for guessing the country of origin. (Sadly, the brilliant Engrish text is no longer available, but the pictures speak those thousand words anyway...)
CatPrin


Seriously though, here is our guide to satisfying online shopping.

Step 1 - Finding what you do, in fact, want:

There are a number of very good sites that allow you to compare prices of products that you want to buy, listed below. Froogle in particular offers all the advanced search options that you’d expect from Google, plus you can even tell it how much you want to spend before you search, though the range is currently more limited than that of its older competitors.
Kelkoo
Dealtime
Froogle


Step 2 - Scrape even more off the bill:

Once you’ve found the product that you want to buy there are handy ways to save a little more by using sites such as Rpoints or QuidCo, which offer cashback or loyalty points for using one of their links to whatever it is you’re after. It's like having a store loyalty card and being able to use it at loads of different shops (but getting more than a tuppeny back for every hundred pounds you spend, thank you Nectar points!)
Rpoints
Quidco

Alternatively, you can release your inner hippy by joining one of the groups listed on Freecycle and swap things you don't want any more for things other people don't want any more. It's certainly a lot better than landfill and completely, utterly free to all concerned.
Freecycle


Step 3 - Mind your Ps and Ps:

It’s worth looking at Postage and Packaging costs as they could make the difference between a bargain and a rip-off, especially on less expensive purchases. For example, much has been made of Amazon’s free shipping, but this only applies to orders over 19 pounds, whereas play.com has free delivery for everything.

Right now might seem like a great time to buy from US sites with Pounds Sterling being so strong against the Dollar, but make sure that the shipping costs aren’t too high otherwise it could turn out to be a false economy.


Other considerations:

Shopping online is never completely secure, but there are ways that you can reduce the risks of fraud. Before you enter your card details make sure that the site is secure; if it is there will be a padlock icon in your browser’s status bar. Some online card providers such as Egg also offer to insure you against online fraud, and many cards automatically insure your goods whilst in transit and for the first 90 days. This is worth taking into consideration when choosing a card if you are going to be spending a lot online.
Egg


Finally, if you are buying from a less well known online retailer, it’s a good idea to check and see what past customers have to say about them, and suddenly our lovely Money Saving Expert comes in handy for this too. Their forum has posts from people who can tell how they fared at various sites.
MoneySavingExpert Forums