A few years ago, I compiled a list of the 15 best sites for finding deals online. I just updated it and replaced several of the Web sites with ones that I wasn't aware of when I created the original list. I've interviewed staff members and even some of the founders of these sites for my Kip Tips columns and found that they have great money-saving advice to offer and truly are experts at finding deals.
Here are the four favorite sites that joined my list of 15 sites for finding deals online -- plus a recently launched Web site that's worth trying.
Ben’s Bargains tracks about 2,000 online retailers to find the best deals within 70 product categories, including apparel, electronics, toys and travel. The site's team hand-picks about 150 to 200 deals daily and includes price history data on products that have been posted before to help users evaluate the quality of the deal. Users also can register to get deal alerts based on product, brand, store and price range. What I really like about this site is its “Cheaper Than Amazon” feature that highlights deals that are much better than what the retail giant is offering (because Amazon doesn't always have the lowest price).
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Brad’s Deals has a team of editors who search the Web daily for the best sale prices, coupons, rebates and store rewards at more than 3,800 retailers. The site is easy to navigate and lets you sort deals by newest or most popular. It recently was redesigned to allow users to set up profiles with their favorite stores, coupons and deals. You also can sign up to receive daily, twice-a-week or weekly emails with deal alerts. The site's founder, Brad Wilson, is an expert at saving money on practically everything and shares his tips in his book Do More, Spend Less.
PromotionalCodes.com has more than 37,000 coupon codes for more than 5,600 online retailers. The codes can be entered during the payment process so you can get a discount on purchases. PromotionalCodes.com works directly with merchants to offer exclusive codes on its site -- in addition to codes that can be found on retailers' sites and even competitors' sites. The site also has a browser add-on you can download to notify you at the top of your browser window if coupons are available when you visit the sites of most of the merchants featured on PromotionalCodes.com. That way you don't have to worry about checking for coupon codes when you're shopping online -- you'll be alerted automatically.
Rather-Be-Shopping.com is a coupon code site that focuses on quality over quantity. Although it provides coupon codes for just about 800 retailers, it has a coupon guarantee. You can email Kyle James, the site's founder, if you can’t find a coupon for a particular store on the site, and he will try to find one and get back to you in 24 hours. Plus, the Rather-Be-Shopping blog features great tips to help you save money when shopping.
One to watch: TrackIf. Launched in June 2013, TrackIf monitors product prices (as well as vehicle, home, stock and travel-related prices) and alerts you when they drop. The easiest way to track prices with TrackIf is to download the free browser add-on so you can simply click on products that you want to receive alerts about when they go on sale. If you don't want to install the browser add-on, you can register with TrackIf and copy and paste urls for items you see online. Then TrackIf can track those items. I only recently learned about the site, so it hasn't been long enough for me to test how well the price tracking works. But what I really like about the site is that when you use it to search for a product, you get a long list of retailers selling it, the current price and a price history. So it's great for price comparison and for identifying whether a sale price actually is a good price because the price history lets you see if the retailer hiked the price before marking it down.
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