ONLINE SHOPPING SEASON UNDERWAY

Post Chronicle - November 16, 2006 – The online shopping season has begun. If you are like me, than you hate going to the mall and online shopping is the remedy. Now the only inconvenience left is wrapping the presents.
There quite a bit of money to be saved by shopping or comparing prices online. Over two thirds of consumers expect to do part of their holiday spending online, according to a Deloitte & Touche survey. "Online shopping continues to convert more readily into online buying, and online pre-shopping–researching items and comparing prices online before heading to a store–is becoming far more pervasive," says Pat Conroy, vice chairman and national managing principal of Deloitte's consumer business practice.

Because Thanksgiving arrives early this year, the traditional holiday shopping season will last 31 days, a day longer than 2005 and the longest since 2001. Just one extra shopping day could translate to nearly $2 billion in extra consumer spending.

Jon Shanks of the National Ledger offers the following tips:

1. Find the lowest price online - Use price comparison sites such as www.shoplocal.com to search for items on your list. These sites allow you to compare prices for online stores as well as local retailers in your area. When considering online shopping versus traditional shopping, consider the cost benefits of free shipping and sales tax savings, in addition to the time you save not going to the store.
   
2. Find an online coupon code - Search online coupon code Web sites to see if a coupon code is available for online retailers for free shipping or a percentage off of your purchase. Online coupon codes are readily available on thousands of Web sites for online merchants and can be found using search engines with keywords such as "online coupon code" or "online discount."
   
3. Get an automatic rebate - When shopping online, shop through online rebate sites.

According to recent surveys, 45 percent of consumers said in mid-September that they had already begun their shopping or would do so before Thanksgiving.

# # #

ShopLocal, ShopLocal.com, SmartCircular, SmartCatalog and SmartMedia are trademarks and Eva the Shopping Diva is a service mark of ShopLocal, LLC. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.