Shopping comparison sites make it easy to find the best deals online in a matter of minutes. Special search engines called "shopping bots" do the legwork for you, scouring the Web to find the lowest price on the product you want. Sound too good to be true? It's not. Here's where you can start...
MySimon is a popular shopping bot that compares prices at more than 2,000 online stores. Just enter the product you're looking for and get a list of sites where you can buy it, along with current prices.
One of the largest shopping comparison sites is DealTime. A recent search for a Nikon Coolpix 880 camera, for example, generated a list of 42 merchants with prices ranging from $510 to $659.95.
DealTime and MySimon let you shop for all kinds of goods, everything from computers to clothing to baby gear to furniture. And they do more than find the best price. Both sites offer merchant ratings, user reviews and expert buying guides -- a virtual wellspring of unbiased shopping information.
PriceGrabber has an extra-smart shopping bot. You enter your zip code and get a "bottom line price" that includes taxes and shipping, which, as any online shopper knows, can vary significantly between merchants.
