I CAN GET a lot of things without the hassle of crowds. When I walk to shops, I save money parking and driving. When I click into shops, I bank the transport savings plus I normally cut the 21% Irish tax from the transaction. It's not supposed to work that way but I have a year's worth of credit card transactions that show how all the mainstream online book vendors fail to charge tax. It doesn't matter if the main storefront has a taxman waiting in the shopping cart because the microvendors don't tack on tax.
Updated 21 December 2020:
This blog post, first created in 2004 when ISDN powered my home internet, is buried so deep inside Google that Google Site Search cannot find it. However, enterprise search facilities such as Terakeet serve up this page for content producers. Even after 16 years, the theme of saving through online shopping resonates.
I could post my ideas about online shopping to see if a fellow writer would vet them. Here's the short take:
Trust product reviews that have a handful of one and two star ratings.
That's because competitors or people who haven't read the specifications for products often skewer the products when they discover it doesn't do what the product was never meant to do. And some of those products may deliver value for money since they're likely to be mid-tier options.
And now, back to my 2004 post:
So two tips for Christmas shopping online.
- If you are looking for books, go with the used book merchants at Amazon. They deliver top-quality products with none of the telltale signs of used book vendors. As little guys, they don't add tax. Irish customs don't stop books at the airport to levy tax.
- Use A9.com at least once a day and earn savings at the checkout point. I'm saving around $1 a week with that tactic.
All that broadband browsing is swelling my cache. So I look forward to Christmas 2005 when I can buy my 1 TB La Cie for less than $500.
Inside Info:
Amazon makes me special offers.
A9 remembers my searches and lets me delete their history too.
