Internet Shopping / MoneySavingExpert.com Discussion

jancalla · 5 April 2006 at 2:07PM

brigittejohn wrote:

I have recently made two large household purchases and found that the shopbots were not the cheapest, by far. I tried all of them and then did a simple google search, entering the name of the product and found it £50 cheaper. Later on, after ordering, I did a search for reviews on the product, and found it another £50 cheaper!
So I would have wasted £100 by going via the shopbots! As it is I wasted £50!

The product in question was the expresso maker "Bodum Granos 3020". The cheapest on the shopbots was £350, through google £300 https://www.coffeemountain.co.uk, and lastly through searching reviews £249 https://www.gocoffee.co.uk (including two cups, ground coffee and delivery).

I had a similar experience whilst purchasing a washing machine about a month ago.

So you have been warned... don't rely on the shopbots to give you the cheapest prices...

Brigitte

Hi Brigette,

I've found that shopbots aren't the best for electrical items in all categories. Shopbots are good for things like gadgets, mp3 players, new technology etc but are not always the best for white goods like washing machines or fridge freezers.

Shopbots are good for books, DVDs, Music, Games because there are so many retailers willing to pay affiliate commissions.

Another thing with shopbots is make sure you use them just before you are about to make a purchase because they usually are updated daily if not by the minute and just because you found a good price yesterday doesn't mean it is the best today.

It's always worth another quick look!

Janey

kingkano · 20 April 2006 at 8:41AM

Maybe its just because I've found this article really late but it seems wholly infactual to me!!! Mainly on the cashbacks that annoyed me.

Rpoints is listed as the best, the total profit tho includes the £5 signup bonus (500pts) which you wont actually be able to cashout until you've earned 2500pts (£25) in points yourself. Which his shopping example doesnt! (it earns 7.50 worth only). SO that makes a massive difference to what you will have actually received.... (and as the article does say 'total payout').

ALso does quidco have a £20 minimum to get paid?? I thought it was 1p actually. Perhaps thats just outdated information I dont know.

Great list of shopbots though I didnt know alot of those so will use them next time I need something

robin1989 · 21 April 2006 at 10:58AM

hi recently i have been looking around for some speakers for my TV so i when round the usual price runners like kelkoo but they were simaler to highstreet prices so i whent trauling the internet and found this great german site

https://www.technikdirekt.de/

i was amazed it worked out at been about £300-£400 :T cheeper including postage to the uk.
Just thought i would share this find
thanks :j

MumofThree · 12 May 2006 at 9:55AM

Maybe its just because I've found this article really late but it seems wholly infactual to me!!! Mainly on the cashbacks that annoyed me.

Rpoints is listed as the best, the total profit tho includes the £5 signup bonus (500pts) which you wont actually be able to cashout until you've earned 2500pts (£25) in points yourself. Which his shopping example doesnt! (it earns 7.50 worth only). SO that makes a massive difference to what you will have actually received.... (and as the article does say 'total payout').

ALso does quidco have a £20 minimum to get paid?? I thought it was 1p actually. Perhaps thats just outdated information I dont know.

I agree Kingkano, I signed up to rpoints before christmas and still haven't reached my 2500 point spend to get my free £5. No mention of this in Martins article. Also surely when you take account of the next years spend when you don't get the bonus other sites are better. I'm looking at a dell computer purchase and quidco are giving double the cashback of rpoints and according to their website there is no payout threshold now.

Thanks also to Oliver in the earlier post giving details of Topcashback.co.uk, I hadn't come across this one and although it doesn't beat the Quidco cashback for dell it doesn't take £5 a year so I need to do the sums.

Please, please Martin, can you give us an update?

Update to my earlier post, just looked at Topcashback.co.uk and according to it's faq's it does take £5 a year like quidco. It is however offering a £2.50 reward for signing up.

Looks like it's quidco for my dell purchase.

christymm · 3 July 2006 at 5:36PM

anybody know about pixmania.

susan_ward · 5 July 2006 at 12:00PM

I regularly use cashbacktoyou who do product searches with the maount of cashback you are going to get listed alongsidehttp://www.cashbacktoyou.co.uk/referals.php?ref=1001201Occasinally Froogle as they list second hand products as well .

Mercenary · 5 July 2006 at 8:01PM

I regularly use search sites for all sorts of items. Here are some I find very useful:

https://www.uk.gamestracker.com - Finds games with best prices constantly updated and optional email alerts for release date or price changes.

https://www.123pricecheck.com - for Books, Music, DVDs.

https://www.best-dvd-price.co.uk - for DVDs, further links for CDs, Videos, Games,Books.

I also use Froogle just for a looksee, but often find it's quite limited at the moment. As more companies sign up with them it should get better.

gamer_2 · 9 July 2006 at 9:28PM

Mercenary wrote:

I regularly use search sites for all sorts of items. Here are some I find very useful:

https://www.uk.gamestracker.com - Finds games with best prices constantly updated and optional email alerts for release date or price changes.

https://www.123pricecheck.com - for Books, Music, DVDs.

https://www.best-dvd-price.co.uk - for DVDs, further links for CDs, Videos, Games,Books.

I also use Froogle just for a looksee, but often find it's quite limited at the moment. As more companies sign up with them it should get better.

Hiya Mercinary,

I find froogle quite a good starting point when comparing prices. However I thin best-dvd-price and 123price check just aren't as quick to update as https://www.find-dvd.co.uk (which is in the original report). Accuaracy is the key with price comparisions and find-dvd seem to have got it right - altough they don't include international retailers like yes-asia etc.

Similarly https://www.billybargain.co.uk/games/ seems to be much more up to date than gamestracker.com. Games seems to fluctuate in price quite frequently at the moment with retailers watching each other like hawks (more with the next-gen console games) and I think gamestracker seem to update less often. Also billybargain do offer the same tracking of prices that gamestracker do. I',m registered with both (and others) to keep as many eyes on things as I can!

Regards
Sl

Mercenary · 10 July 2006 at 1:45PM

gamer wrote:

Similarly https://www.billybargain.co.uk/games/ seems to be much more up to date than gamestracker.com. Games seems to fluctuate in price quite frequently at the moment with retailers watching each other like hawks (more with the next-gen console games) and I think gamestracker seem to update less often. Also billybargain do offer the same tracking of prices that gamestracker do. I',m registered with both (and others) to keep as many eyes on things as I can!
Regards
Sl

Hi Gamer,

Hmmm...I'll have to have a look at billybargain too. Thanks for the heads-up

.

gamer_2 · 10 July 2006 at 11:14PM

Mercenary wrote:

Hi Gamer,

Hmmm...I'll have to have a look at billybargain too. Thanks for the heads-up .

No worries mercinary. Also I track some games from asian sites like play-asia and yesasia because even with import tax it can sometimes work out cheaper.

Internet Shopping / MoneySavingExpert.com Discussion

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free