The Product Watch Satellite (image: cristimatei / iStockphoto)

Product/Service Name

PriceTrace

Brief Description

Comparing prices is necessary if you want to get the best deals on your purchases, but it’s a time-consuming process. PriceTrace is an online shopping tool that allows you to look for better prices, without hunting all over. You can all set alerts for price drops and check a price history chart for each product.

Target audience: Shoppers who are interested in getting all their price information in one spot.

Stores included: Tracks more than forty major retailers, including Amazon and Walmart.

Key Features

• Toolbar. If you install the PriceTrace Firefox toolbar, you can see product price information wherever you’re shopping with just one click.
• Current prices. See prices for individual products across many online stores.
• Check history. Look at past prices for the product you’re shopping for and get a sense of when there will be a sale or a price drop.
• Set alerts. Subscribe to alerts so that you can get notification whenever a product drops to a certain price.
• Find filler. Since some sites offer free shipping as long as you spend a certain amount, you can look for filler to bring your shopping cart up to that amount.

Benefits

You can save a lot of time, as well as money, by using PriceTrace to shop around for you. The ability to set price alerts is particularly useful. If you know that you don’t need a particular product immediately, you can make sure that you get the best possible deal.

Costs

PriceTrace is free to use.

Similar Products/Services

There are several similar services out there, including comparison toolbars from Dealio and Shopping-Bargains.com.

Opinions from around the Web

• Positive: “Firefox Add-on of the Week: Pricetrace…With Firefox extensions, most users want to avoid adding more bulk to their toolbar and prefer browsing the Internet in a minimalist manner. However, for the frugal bargain hunter, PriceTrace.commakes the clutter worth it with a nifty Firefox add-on that helps users find the best shopping deals online.” (Maximum PC)
• Positive: “So you’re all set to buy that Widget Pro from Amazon, but just before you add it to your cart, you stop and think: “Am I getting the best price?” PriceTrace, a new add-on for Firefox, aims to give you a one-click answer.” (PC World)

Company Background

PriceTrace was founded in March 2009 in the Bay area. Its toolbar was made available on Firefox at the beginning of November, 2009. It’s become fairly popular, with regular downloads and positive reviews.

Smartlife’s User Advice

I try to keep the toolbars at the top of my web browser to a minimum — it’s easy to clutter it up with toolbars you won’t ever use. However, the PriceTrace toolbar makes sense as an addition to your browser. With comparing prices for a product across multiple sites a matter of just one click, it’s actually likely that I’ll do it. As much as I like saving money, the time it takes to research prices is often not worth the lower price I might get.

I’d love to see more sites added to PriceTrace, however. The site has most major online retailers, but there are some smaller sites out there with great prices that just aren’t listed and don’t look to be any time soon.

Smartlife’s Recommendation: USE IT

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Product Watch is part of an on-going series that cuts through the sales propaganda and marketing hype, and reviews products and services from the standpoint of the user and how they actually help us get more out of life.

The Product Watch Satellite (image: cristimatei / iStockphoto)

Product/Service Name

CheapTweet

Brief Description

CheapTweet finds all the deals, coupons, bargains, sales, and discounts people are talking about on Twitter and collects them at CheapTweet.com, where visitors can search for, vote on, and save these deals. You don’t have to be a Twitter user to take advantage of the deals on CheapTweet — the site is free to use and open to anyone. CheapTweet currently lists more than 49,000 deals from hundreds of retailers, ranging from the largest nation-wide chains to the smallest Etsy shops.

CheapTweet

The Inspiration

Jenn Davis, Chief of Community Experience:

“We’re heavy Twitter users and it’s great for social interaction, making friends and keeping up with people. If you’re on Twitter long enough, though, you see that there are a lot of Twitter users mentioning a great sale they found, offering coupons or tweeting Twitter-only deals. This is really useful, money-saving stuff! The problem was that it’s not practical (or even desirable) to follow everyone tweeting deals and there just weren’t any good tools to find them. We created CheapTweet to aggregate these tweets in one place, promote the best ones and make it easy to search for exactly what you’re interested in.”

Key Features

• Find deals. View highest-rated deals as voted on by users and most-discussed by Tweeter users. Other ways of finding include product categories, keyword search, and various time-bound filters (e.g., newest, last 12 hours, etc.).
• Receive deal alerts. Follow CheapTweet on Twitter and receive information on new deals.
• Save deals. Save and categorize deals that you’re interested in, but not quite ready to purchase.
• Rate deals. Vote deals as either good (“It’s Cheap”) or no good (“It’s Lame”).

Benefits

Save money on shopping purchases — fashion & beauty, tech & gaming, entertainment & travel, home & family, and food & drink.

Costs

Free service. Account sign-up is optional, but required if you want to vote and save deals.

Similar Products/Services

There are a lot of similar services that aggregate deal information, but CheapTweet is unique in that it mines the information from Twitter users.

Opinions from around the Web

None yet.

Company Background

CheapTweet is one of several services and products managed by Appozite, an Austin-based company founded in 2008 dedicated to improving the way people shop online. The company released CheapTweet on November 25, 2008. According to Compete.com’s November 2008 traffic statistics, CheapTweet received 5,000+ unique visitors during the first week of its launch.

Smartlife’s User Advice

One of the many to-dos we have here at Smartlife is to assess which deal sites are the best. There are piles of them out there, and it’d be convenient to know which ones help you shop most efficiently and effectively. Until then, it’d be imprudent to make a definitive recommendation on whether or not to use CheapTweet.

I will say, though, that CheapTweet has a lot going for it. For one, it’s the first service that I’ve come across which aggregates deal information from the exploding community of Twitter users (probably near 2 million at this point). Appozite, the company behind CheapTweet, adeptly recognized the mass number of merchants and individual bargain hunters using Twitter to exchange deal information, and developed the technical means to mine and share this information with everyone. In many respects, Twitter functions as a simpler and more efficient way of exchanging deal information, as opposed to firing off emails or posting messages on forums like you have to do with other deal sites. Twitter’s message-sharing convenience will only increase its use among deal sharers, putting CheapTweet in a very good position to become one of the Internet’s top deal-aggregator sites. But its information advantage is likely to be short lived, as other deal sites develop the technical capability to aggregate deal tweets. So CheapTweet must focus its marketing and community-building efforts to expand quickly. Right now, the site doesn’t employ some of the incentive-based techniques that attract and encourage users (particularly non-retail store users) to submit deal information and only a limited number of deals are currently being voted on by the users (but that’s because the site just launched). From a user standpoint, this means that the VERY best deals might not be visible.

In general, there are a number of optimal ways to use deal sites like CheapTweet that Smartlife will discuss in a future post, but one that I’ll bring up here is related to reducing “data smog,” which can, in the case of shopping, cause wasteful impulse buying. To reduce data smog, I’d like CheapTweet to create the ability for me to import my “wish list” from an external source (such as Wishlistr) and allow me to set self-defined deal alert notifications (e.g., every three months) for only those items on my list. This would help me filter out all the consumer junk that I don’t need to see and would be bombarded with and tempted to buy through traditional searching and browsing.

Bottom line: CheapTweet is a promising service that could become one of your go-to sites for deal information, assuming it matures quickly.

Smartlife’s Recommendation: WATCH IT/TRY IT

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Product Watch is part of an on-going series that cuts through the sales propaganda and marketing hype, and reviews products and services from the standpoint of the user and how they actually help us get more out of life.

(Photo: TerryJ / iStockphoto)

Online shopping is hailed for saving time and money, but does it always work out that way? Scouring dozens of different sites can become a time-consuming ordeal, as you complete exhausting research to buy that new computer or get the best deals on your holiday shopping. There has to be a better, more efficient way to use the Internet to find the best deals — and there is, of course. Deal websites do your bargain-hunting work for you by compiling information on store sales and deals, offering information on rebates and cash-back opportunities and free stuff, updating you on the latest deals on popular products, and providing you with coupons and helpful money-saving tips.

Bargainist.com

AbleShoppers.com — This site lists new deals daily and current hot picks on a range of products. There are extensive lists on tips and deals for specific items, and the sheer amount of categories is huge. The site also offers coupons for categories from electronics and auto to financial services and entertainment. You can sort for coupons by store name or product. Sign up for their special newsletter for more tips.

AnandTech.com — This site focuses on hardware analysis and industry news along with getting you the best deals. You can personalize the site for your use and read up on trade show information, tech news and the latest from the gaming and mobile worlds. Read over the latest articles on all kinds of tech issues and search for products using “real time pricing”.

Bargaineering.com — Bargaineering touts “the art of engineering great bargains.” The site offers “hot deals” in categories including clothes, travel, financial, restaurants, mobile phones, and entertainment. There’s a travel section with airfare, hotel, and cruise tips for planning a money-wise outing, and a personal finance blog with helpful tips.

Bargainist.com — Named one of Time magazine’s top 10 websites of 2006 and PC Magazine’s “Top 100 Favorite Blogs of 2007,” this site provides continuous updates on deals in a range of categories, as well as information on snagging free stuff and coupons. Money-saving tips are practical and helpful.

BensBargains.net — The site includes coupons, rebates, info on freebies, and reviews of products. There are lots of technology and entertainment products along with other categories of items, and a “Top Three Deals” list highlighting the best of what’s out there. This site has been recognized in national magazines for years of good service.

BradsDeals.com — This site is a great one for coupons, claiming to offer “an active coupon for 90% of the stores you shop at.” Thousands of coupons, lists of which ones are expiring soon, and posts of new ones, along with coupons for major stores are all on the site. There’s even the world’s first coupon for space flight. No joke.

CheapStingyBargains.com — CheapStingyBargains.com has a co-op forum that allows individual shoppers to start a community with others in order to get group discounts on high-ticket items including electronics, cars, vacations, and services. The site also gives extensive info on sales, clearances, rebates, and exclusive coupons.

CouponAlbum.com — Coupon Album offers coupons for hundreds of top0rated stores and thirty product categories. An online forum allows posters to share info on rebates, free items, Black Friday ads, and more. For a basic coupon search, this site will do the job.

DailyeDeals.com — DailyeDeals.com searches the web for you to find the best deals and post them daily, with a “hot deals archive” where you can find the latest bargains. Check out the first-time customer discounts offered on the page. An extensive free stuff list is also offered, and the review of free Internet access providers, free web page hosting services, and free disk space providers is a useful and unique addition. There’s also free communication info (free voice mail, email, and fax services) and “free money” guides.

DealCatcher.com — Along with deals and coupons, this site has a “compare prices” feature for different categories of products, a compilation of weekly sales circulars and Sunday newspaper ads, and a huge range of stores so you can find the one you want. Forums offer information on shopping advice, comments on vendors, and more.

dealnews.com

Dealhack.com — Dealhack includes weekly top-ten lists of different products and a clearance list for rock-bottom prices. The site has a helpful user’s guide and you can easily search for specific items or browse different options. Specials, coupons, rebates, and buyer’s guides add to the resources.

Dealigg.com — A community site run by shoppers, who post the best deals they find on the net, with the other community members voting on whether the deal is a great bargain. Deals are organized by category and you can trust that they’re good when you have the opinions and ratings of other users. This is fun for those who want to contribute their own ideas and opinions.

Dealio.com — Offers a great list of coupons, deals, and price comparisons. Dealio also offers a toolbar to make bargain hunting a breeze.

dealnews.com — “Where every day is Black Friday,” this site was ranked #24 in PC World’s “100 Best Products of 2006″ list. They deliver over a hundred deals every day and only offer the lowest total prices they find. There’s an entire section focusing on Macs, and a “Highest Rated Deals” listing. Users can submit deals too, and the site takes its customers seriously — they ban stores with a history of poor customer service.

DealOfDay.com — Sign up for daily deals to come right to your inbox. There’s a lot going on here — the homepage includes the latest blog posts, expiring coupons, hot deals, and the most popular 100 deals. The blog has a variety of posts that sometimes stray from practical advice and include thoughts or fun commentary on the shopping experience.

Deals.com — “Today’s Top Detective” feature on the site finds the best deals and coupons on the web, and the site highlights top-five stores and top-five categories of products. This is a good site for iPod shopping with a range of information and items.

Deals2Buy.com — The deals are listed chronologically here so you see what the newest posted bargains are. There’s also a $0 deals section full of free offers and a weekly merchant ads section that includes deals and sale info from a range of supermarkets.

Dealsea.com — This site has spare design and is better for those looking to search for a specific item rather than browsing through lots of options. Dealsea includes credit card and car incentive and rebate information. There’s news on hot deals and online coupons and forums, too.

DealsList.com — DealsList.com includes daily- and weekly-updated deals from different stores and vendors, so you can keep abreast on your favorite places to make sure you have full information. This site is a good resource for comparison-shopping credits cards so you can get the best financial deal.

DealsOfAmerica.com — This site stands out for its extensive travel deals section including hotels, flights, rental cars, etc. It lists popular hotels to search, airlines to review, and other travel sites as well as highlighted deals and sales from different sources.

FatWallet.com

DealsPl.us — This is a social-shopping website where users pick the best deals and share bargains, coupons, shopping tips as well as organize their shopping lists. This is the first and only shopping site added to the ShareThis feature button, which means users can send interesting or useful info from other sites straight to DealsPlus to share their find.

DealTaker.com — DealTaker has a very professional look and user-friendly design. There’s a good section featuring a selection of gift cards, as well as thousands of active coupons. Its features are similar to other sites, but the design makes it feel easier to use than some of the others.

eDealinfo.com — You can pinpoint specific searches for deals on this site — no mail-in rebate, deals under $25, long-term deals, top deals, tech or non-tech deals. You can also browse major stores and their current promotions and deals. This site is unique in that it offers special United Kingdom and Canadian sections.

FatWallet.com — This site has a nice design without overwhelming clutter, and is easy to read and navigate. Since it started, the site has grown to include over 800 merchant partners. It is ranked by Compete.com as one of the top 1,000 Internet properties worldwide. The site includes price comparisons (powered by PriceGrabber.com) and info on cash-back opportunities at different stores, and a well organized forum section with deal discussions and finance-focused information like “how to get a screaming car deal during the auto meltdown.” FatWallet offers a browser button for easy access to cash-back and coupon deals.

GotApex.com — This site focuses on PC products, billing itself as a one-stop shop for all computing needs. It also has hardware and software reviews along with info on hot deals. A forum includes posts that are not always relevant to shopping or technology, but can be a fun distraction.

GottaDeal.com — The community-forum-style site emphasizes sharing info on deals. This site is famous for its annual Black Friday coverage. The online coupon listing is excellent because it’s easy to read, well organized, and includes all the relevant info and links in a very usable format. There’s also a comprehensive deal archive collecting bargains from the whole week that is easy to read and navigate.

Hot-Deals.org/HotDealsClub.com — The total lack of design on this site makes it unappealing, and it feels very amateur. If you can stand the format, you can view a number of hot daily deals compiled from other deal sites, with lots of tech and computer products on offer.

Passwird.com — Run by a savvy college student, this site offers basic features without frills — a list of good deals is posted daily and then archived by week. For simple deal information on a regular basis with no extra distractions, this site works.

MrCheapStuff.com — MrCheapStuff.com features articles on things like money-saving tax tips, and tips on other buyer’s advice and deals. It also offers coupons by store and top coupon deals. The informational, interesting articles are central to the site, and you can go from there to search for coupons and deals. There’s good advice and info on buying cheap gas, time saving, and even productivity.

ResellerRatings.com — The key feature here is the store rating aspect — a wide variety of stores are rated and given reviews so you can see what’s best and worst for shopping. A list of merchant members actively participate with the site, and daily discussions offer opinion on stores, deals, and general shopping.

Savings.com

Savings.com — Along with site coupon hunters, members of this site find the best coupons on the web and the Savings.com community rates the best one. This site features coupons that receive the best reviews, not accepting incentives from any vendors to promote their particular coupons. Site members also get insider tips on deals.

Spoofee.com — This site emphasizes on community with discussion boards and sharing of info. There’s even a section that’s completely off-topic with jokes and other funs stuff. Top deals are featured daily, but if you want to cut through and get down to business, skip this one.

Slickdeals.net — Again, this has a community focus, and does not accept paid placement for frontpage deal listings. On this site, consumers collaborate and share info to make the best shopping decisions, using communication forums and different shopping tools. The site is free to take part.

Techbargains.com — Techbargains.com uses human research and reader feedback as opposed to automated computer searches in order to find info on the best deals for technology products. Because it focuses on one area, the site offers a strong, focused quality. Exclusive deals are often offered by vendors to site users.

xpBargains.com — The huge list of bargains featured here is overwhelming but probably full of good stuff if you have the patience to read through. The site focuses on the best tech deals, but also includes jewelry, gifts, health and beauty items, and financial services.

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(Image: alexsl / iStockphoto)

Bad economy or not, smart shoppers are always looking for an easy way to save a buck or two. If you’ve heard of this thing called the Internet (and you must have because you’re reading this blog), then you probably know one of the best ways to save money (and time) is to make your product purchases online. Online shopping makes it easy and simple to find exactly what you want, and to get it for a cheaper price.

Why does online shopping save you so much money? One of the major reasons is because it’s so easy to search for the same item offered by different merchants: stores can no longer expect that once you’re there, you’ll buy from them; so they have to sell items at highly competitive prices or employ other sales tactics such as price matching to keep you from purchasing elsewhere.

You can take advantage of this new climate of transparent, competitive pricing by using online price comparison shopping services. As you can see from the list below, a large number of sites offer an interface and search engine that allow you to search hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of different merchants at once, finding you the best price in town or the entire galactic. Some sites even leverage the power of the crowds (crowdsourcing) to find you the best price around (a.k.a. “social shopping”).

So to make the most of your money, we recommend that use one of the price-comparison sites below next time you go to buy something. And pass the word along to the self-anointed shopping genius in your family that he or she doesn’t need to waste time driving around to 15 different stores to find the best price anymore. Just fire up the Internet instead.

Become.com

AllBookStores.com — Need a new or used book or college textbook? Self-proclaimed as the “world’s greatest place to buy books,” this site compares prices at 34 different online book retailers, including Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, to get you the best deal.

AnandTech.com — On the web since 1997, this site focuses on computer hardware products, offering price comparisons via its “RealTime Price Engine” as well as product news and reviews.

BeatThat.com — Community-driven site where users are paid to find better deals. The site guarantees the lowest prices for its products (camcorders, digital cameras, GPS devices, printers, TVs, and MP3 players), or it’ll pay you for alerting the site to a better deal. Product stores are rated green/yellow/red based on their customer service and track record of delivering what they promise, so try to buy from only the green-rated stores.

Become.com — Allows you to shop from over 25 million products and 5,000 stores, and to conduct product research (product reviews, buying guides, and other shopping advice) from 5.6 billion shopping-related web pages. This site is a complete portal to search, decide, and purchase what you want. Here are some shopping categories in which you can search for cheap prices on this site: automotive; electronics; baby; flowers & gifts; books, music & movies; health & beauty; business & office; home & garden; clothing & accessories; jewelry & watches; cameras; sports & outdoors; computers & software; and toys & video games.

BestBuyAll.com — This site offers a software download that searches other price-comparison sites (such as mySimon, DealTime, CNET, Pricewatch, Walmart, Yahoo, Google, Amazon.com, MSN, PriceSCAN, and others) simultaneously so you can find the cheapest price. There are two versions of this software: a free version and a Pro version for $29.95.

BestWebBuys.com — Provides a  simple price-comparison search engine, focused on books, music, video, electronics, and bikes. Also displays best product deals.

BigLion.com — This site claims to offer “everything you need to shop online:” directory of online stores, comparison shopping, coupons (free shipping, coupon codes, clearance centers), and more.

BizRate.com — One of the most popular sites on this list, BizRate is known for its merchant review services: search for a merchant (such as Amazon.com) and see what users have to say about the company. The site also offers price-comparison shopping, among other shopping tools. Here are some shopping categories in which you can search for cheap prices on this site: babies & kids; clothing & accessories; computers & software; electronics; health & beauty supplies; home & garden; furniture; jewelry & watches; sports & outdoors; toys & games; automotive; gifts, flowers & food; musical instruments & accessories; pet supplies; and video games.

BookFinder.com — Allows you to compare prices on over 150 million books (seriously?) for sale — new, used, rare, out-of-print, international, textbook, and signed — from booksellers in 50+ countries.

BookHQ.com — Obtains and compares book prices from multiple stores, and includes sales tax and shipping cost in the final price.

DealTime.com

BottomDollar.com — This site aggregates a lot product items, and allows you to compare prices, rate products, and read reviews.

Bountii.com — Allows you to subscribe to a daily newsletter containing the best deals of the day. This site has an excellent design, and lets you know exactly how much you’re saving.

Calibex.com — Member of the NexTag family, this site allows you to search for items in hundreds of different categories: computers; electronics; video games; office products; books; baby; clothing & accessories; collectibles & art; flowers & plants; food & wine; gifts; health & beauty; home & garden; jewelry & watches; magazines; musical instruments; sports & outdoors; toys; accessories; parts; hotels; and more.

Ciao.com — Offering product reviews and price comparisons, this popular site has portals to different countries around the world.

Citibay.com — This site is more of a general Internet search engine than it is a product search engine; nevertheless, it does allow you to search for prices and tons of other categorical things.

Dealighted.com — This site has a powerful, customizable search engine that allows you to compare prices. (The site’s look and feel is very similar to Kayak.com). Dealighted also shows you the hottest deals around, which are either posted by site users (who can earn up to $300/mo. posting deals) or through a search filter that discovers the best deals from over 25 deal forums such as FatWallet.com.

Dealio.com — Offers a great list of coupons, deals, and price comparisons. Dealio also offers a toolbar to make bargain hunting a breeze.

DealTime.com — Displays most popular items of the day, and offers product reviews, store directory, and price comparisons.

DVDPriceSearch.com — Price-comparison site aimed specifically at DVD movies. Also offers coupons for DVD-related purchases.

Ebates.com — Different stores pay Ebates a finder’s fee commission, and Ebates shares that commission with you. In addition, Ebates gives you a gift just for signing up — a $10 gift certificate or $5 cash.

Like.com

Expedia.com — Popular website destination for price-hunting travelers looking for the best prices on airfare, car rentals, hotel reservations, and more.

Froogle.Google.com — Froogle, which is Google’s search portal, provides a very simple and easy-to-use interface to find cheap prices on items all over the web.

Frucall.com — Frucall is an online price comparison shopping service for mobile phones. With Frucall, you can compare prices while you’re physically in stores by either: calling 1-888-DO-FRUCALL and entering the product’s barcode or ISBN; texting FRU11 with the product’s barcode, ISBN, or brand and model; or visiting www.frucall.com /m via your mobile browser. This site also includes social-networking features such as “buddy lists” and various shopping tools such as “price alerts.” Frucall’s service has potential uses, but I don’t recommend doing your price-comparison shopping while you’re actually at the store; do it beforehand so you know exactly which store offers the best price, thereby avoiding unnecessary travel.

GasBuddy.com — Allows you to find the best gas prices in your area. (Check out Smartlife’s post on GasBuddy.)

Hawkee.com — Self-described as a “technology social network,” this site offers deals on technology-related items (computers, electronics, software, and video games). Also offers access to programming code and technology resources.

Hotels.com — Popular for its hotel reviews, Hotels.com allows you to find and compare hotel prices.

Hotwire.com — Allows you to price-hunt for the best travel deals, and to compare its prices with other sites like Expedia.

Jellyfish.com — Social-shopping service that allows users to set the selling price on items and try to bid on the purchase price. Check it out — it’s a unique way to shop.

Kayak.com — This well-known site allows you to compare airline ticket, hotel room, vacation package, cruise, and rental car prices using a robust search engine and intuitive interface. Kayak mines price data from over 100 travel sites. Sure beats visiting each one.

LendingTree.com — Allows you to solicit and compare the prices of financial products — such as personal and home loans — offered by a multitude of competing lenders.

Like.com — Visual-search engine that allows you to find and compare shoes, handbags, and more.

Mpire.com

LivePersonalShoppers.com — This site provides free, live online shopping help. While it doesn’t offer a price-comparison search engine like the other sites on this list, Live Personal Shoppers does connect you with expert shoppers who can offer deal advice. Interesting.

MonsterMarketplace.com — This site offers a shopping search engine that features over 2.5 million products in a variety of shopping categories. It also provides shoppers valuable product details and price-comparison indexes, so you can effectively comparison shop in one, convenient location.

Mpire.com — This site allows you to shop, compare, research, and find the best prices and deals online from “the world’s best auction and retail sites” such as eBay, Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and more. It provides a handy price trend graph so you can see whether a product’s price is trending up or down, indicating when it’s a good or bad time to buy. The site also uses price graphs to show you whether you’re over- or under-paying for an item. (Coupons are available on the site as well.)

mySimon.com — One of the granddaddy’s of price-comparison sites, mySimon searches through thousands of vendors to find you the cheapest price possible.

NexTag.com — NexTag takes price-comparison shopping to the next level. In addition to allowing searches for different consumer products, you can also search for the best prices on mortgages, travel, degree programs, real estate, and more.

Octopart.com — This site offers a search engine for electronic parts. If you need a resistor or a capacitor, here’s the place to find it.

Orbitz.com — Orbitz compares hotel room, airline ticket, vacation package, cruise, and car rental prices.

Price.com — This site allows you to compare the best prices on the web, and also provides a vast repository of vendor ratings.

PriceAdvance.com — PriceAdvance is a toolbar for your web browser that automatically searches for cheaper prices on items while you’re shopping online. Whenever you’re looking at an item on any shopping site, PriceAdvance will let you know if the same item can be found cheaper at a different store.

PricingCentral.com — According to the site’s description, PricingCentral is a portal that indexes all the best price search engines and online shopping bots into a comprehensive directory to help you find the right price comparison shopping agents each time you shop. This allows you to quickly compare prices and find the lowest prices on anything, no matter what you’re looking for each time you shop.

PriceGrabber.com — In addition to price comparisons, this site offers reviews & ratings, rebates, and merchant coupons.

PriceRunner.com

Priceline.com — Travel service that allows you to dictate your exact flights and times for substantial savings or “Name Your Own Price,” which can potentially save you even more.

PriceRunner.com — PriceRunner’s intuitive interface allows you to price-compare products easily. It also offers other shopping resources such as buying guides, coupons, and merchant rebates.

PriceSCAN.com — In addition to its price-comparison search, PriceSCAN allows you to view price trends, vendor ratings, and product ratings.

PriceSpider.com — This site provides a powerful search engine that constantly crawls over 100 online merchants to keep prices updated on a near real-time basis (no more than 30 minutes old).

Pricewatch.com — Focusing largely on technology products, this site has been providing a price-comparison service since 1995. In addition to your desktop browser, you can also access Pricewatch via your mobile phone.

PriceTool.com — Owned and operated by Epinions, PriceTool provides a comprehensive price-comparison service.

PriceV.com — PriceV offers an “unbiased” price-comparison service that helps you get the best and least expensive products and where to buy them.

Progressive.com — Allows you to compare auto insurance price quotes.

Pronto.com — This social-shopping site lets you search for items by navigating through different shopping categories. Pronto also allows you to create, maintain, and share your shopping lists.

Retrevo.com — This search aggregator provides consumer electronics reviews, manuals, guides, and prices.

SaveCrazy.com — This company’s singular mission is to save you money. Its price-comparison search engine and intuitive shopping-category navigation allows you to find the best prices on products from hundreds of online merchants. SaveCrazy.com also provides several other useful shopping tools, including a browser toolbar, coupon list, and article directory.

Shopping.com

Search.Live.com/Cashback — Microsoft’s search portal offers a powerful search engine for prices and has a proprietary “cashback” program that lets you actually earn money by shopping through the site.

ShopLocal.com — This site allows you to search for products in specific cities. If you’re looking for deals and prices on items, but you want to be able to enter the store before making a decision, try this site out.

Shopper.CNET.com — CNET’s shopping portal allows you to run price-comparison searches for electronic and computer products.

Shopping.AOL.com — AOL’s shopping portal allows you to compare prices and provides oft-updated articles about shopping.

Shopping.com — Owned by eBay, Shopping.com offers price comparisons, product reviews (provided by Epinions), and online store reviews as well as a list of “hot” shopping items.

Shopping.MSN.com — MSN’s shopping portal offers some great categories to search in such as specific sales of the day/week, great gifts under $25, and a holiday gift finder.

Shopping.Yahoo.com — Yahoo’s shopping portal lets you search by merchant or by brand and shows a specific deal of the day.

ShoppingAisles.com — Offers a basic interface, allowing you to compare prices from hundreds of different merchants.

ShoppingSpot.com — This site doesn’t offer a price-comparison search engine of its own, but it links to several others that do. Similarly, it links to sites that provide consumer opinions, product reviews, store ratings, and other shopping-related resources.

ShopWiki.com — Allows individual users to edit the results of searches, so much of the content is user-generated. I had some trouble with the search feature, however, so your mileage may vary.

Smarter.com

Shopzilla.com — This site has been saving shoppers on prices since 1996. It receives over 10 million unique visitors per month. Shopzilla allows you to search for prices by keyword, popularity, and shopping category.

SmartCarFinder.com — This site helps you find the cheapest prices and best deals on new and used cars and trucks.

Smarter.com — In addition to price comparisons, this site also offers reviews, featured merchants, product videos, and deals on all sorts of items all over the web.

SmartHealthBuyer.com — Price comparison engine for health services — acupuncture, chiropractic, cosmetic surgery, dental, hypnotism, massage therapy, naturopathy, optical, and skin care — that allows you to read doctor reviews and compare treatments and prices. Covers over 300 metro areas in the U.S, including New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit, Indianapolis, and San Francisco. So if you need a good Botox price, give this site a spin.

Sortprice.com — Allows you to search products and compare prices from thousands of stores. You can search for prices by keyword, shopping category, or featured merchant.

StreetPrices.com — Lets you leave notes to yourself on your searches, so you can keep track of items you found and make a decision later.

TheFind.com — Offers a price-comparison search of online merchants, but also allows you to search for items from stores near you. Additionally, it shows a list of the most recent searches by other users on the site.

Travelocity.com — This popular site for bargain-hunting travelers allows you to get the best prices on airfare, car rentals, hotel reservations, and more.

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Chris Cairns contributed to this post.