| 'Twas
the beginning of the holidays
and all through the house,
not a creature
was stirring...
except for
my mouse!
Holiday shopping season.
Some love it, some dread it, some want
to hide in a closet until it's over.
No matter how you feel about the shopping,
this is the time of year to really show
your love with special gifts. The days
of "shop 'til you drop" are over, however.
Now you can get it all done and never
leave the house.
The
Ground Rules
Like any
good game, internet holiday shopping
has a few ground rules to make it better.
Keep them in mind, and you'll have as
much fun as the elves at the North Pole.
Remember
it's the worldwide web
-- pay attention to the address
of the sites you visit. If
the site name ends in ".co.uk" for instance,
you'll be ordering from England. That's
not a bad thing, but you need to be
aware of currency exchange rates and
shipping costs/delays. It's easy to
get so enthralled with the items that
you don't see what you're dealing with
until it's almost too late.
Stick
with sites that have Secure Server technology
so that your credit card information
will be safe. You can
tell a secure site by looking for the
small padlock at the lower right
of your screen to be locked,
and for the site to send you to a page
that begins with "https://"
-- the "s" stands for Secure.
Shop
around and save! The
nifty thing about internet shopping
is that you can compare prices instantly
from a number of retailers if you know
what you're wanting to buy. Below are
a number of links to comparison sites.
(Refer to tip above!
Just because the price is low doesn't
mean the retailer is reputable.)
Sites
to use for comparison shopping:
Botspot
Bizrate
My
Simon
Shopping
Best
Web Buys
Price
Scan
Price
Grabber Bottom
Dollar Consumer
World
Smart
Bargains Overstock FindGift |
