Best Price Comparison / Price Search Engines

Whenever I buy a new product online, I always compare prices from various online merchants using several different price comparison search engines. I do this for two main reasons. The first and most obvious reason is to find the best online price from a reputable merchant (most of the price search engines below allow shoppers to place reviews or ratings of the merchants). If the merchant has a low rating and many bad reviews I stay away from them.

The second reason I always use price comparison search engines is to make sure the product is one that I still want to buy. You can also read consumer’s product reviews on many of the search engines below. If that new computer gadget I’m looking to buy has a lot of unhappy buyers (they will usually tell you why they are not happy with the product) or it does not have a feature I thought it would, I may change my mind. Then I might begin researching an alternate product that has better reviews and all the features I need.

Here Are My Top 5 Recommened Price Comparison Search Engines:

• Shopzilla
  Shopzilla calls themselves the Smarter Way to Shop. The Shopzilla price search engine has comparisons and reviews for a whopping 25 million products from over 45,000 stores. If it’s on the Web, they say it’s on Shopzilla. The website uses BizRate’s Smiley Scale� store ratings to help you see how other shoppers have rated the quality of service from each store. The Shopzilla price comparison search engine also lets you view the total price from each store, including total shipping and taxes.

• BizRate
  BizRate is now owned and operated by Shopzilla so it really just comes down to preference. It’s the web’s largest consumer feedback and price comparison network. On the BizRate website, you can also find their “Circle of Excellence Award Winners” which are 50 online stores that demonstrated outstanding performance in all 7 of the following areas from Sept 01, 2004 - Aug 31, 2005: Ease of Finding What You Are Looking For, On-Time Delivery, Overall Satisfaction, Selection of Products, Customer Support, Product Met Expectations and Repurchase Intent.

• Buy.com
  Buy.com really should be called The Internet Superstore. Buy.com offers over 2 million products in categories ranging from computer software and hardware to electronics, cellular, books, DVDs, music, sporting apparel and much more. Buy.com is BizRate Customer Certified. They were also named one of the Top 50 web sites in both 2002 and 2003 by Internet Retailer. Check out their popular free shipping and deal of the day offers.

• Price Runner
  Price Runner has a great looking website (clean and crisp) with an easy to use website interface. The tabbed navigation works well. They claim to be “the only online shopping engine that allows you examine every single aspect of a product that you’re in the market for. A few of Price Runner’s features include buying advice, side-by-side comparisons, and the ability to view both off and online prices. The Consumer Reviews section where buyers list their purchased product’s strengths and weaknesses (among other ratings) can come in very handy.

• eBay
  While this is not really a traditional “price comparison search engine” you can often find the best prices for a particular product on eBay. eBay is the worlds largest online auction place. If you are not already a member of eBay (membership is free) I would say that you are one of the few.

Need More? Try these reputable price search engines next:

• mySimon
  Yahoo! Shopping
  CNET Shopper
  Nextag.com
  Shopping.com
  Price Watch
  Become

Instead of bookmarking every site above individually, we suggest you simply bookmark this page to start your search for the best online prices. Wishing you an informed and happy online shopping experience!