If you’re skipping the mall this holiday season and shopping online instead, there are some tricks you can use to get better digital deals – and they just take a few simple clicks of the mouse.
For starters, the free browser extension Honey sweetens your discount at the checkout automatically.
“As long as you’re shopping at one of the participating stores, Honey goes out and finds discount codes for you and enters them automatically, when you check out,” explained Nikhil Hutheesing, Consumer Reports money editor.
Honey collects data to help save you money, but doesn’t sell it.
If you shop at American retailers, Invisible Hand, tracks prices at 11,000 online stores without collecting any of your personal information. It can tell you if the item you're looking at is cheaper elsewhere.
You can also save money by playing hard to get. If you put things in a shopping cart but don’t buy them you may get an email the next day, offering a discount to complete the purchase.
“Sometimes you can even get a better price, just by asking. If there’s a live chat option, you can go in, tell the representative how much you like the product, but you think it’s a little pricey and ask if there are any promotions or discounts,” said Hutheesing.
Or you can use websites like CardSwap and Giftcard Granny to create your own discounts, by buying unused gift cards below face value.
And if you’re curious about whether Black Friday or Cyber Monday will score you a better deal, it all depends on what you’re buying.
After comparing prices for several, coveted holiday gifts including televisions, fitness trackers and smartwatches Consumer Reports found all came up cheaper on Cyber Money. But the one thing you should pick up on Black Friday is a laptop.
