Save Time And Money: PriceZombie Brings The Deals To You
Today, you can buy almost anything online. Since there are a multitude of Internet retailers offering every product you can think of, trying to find the best price can become a little intimidating. Online shopping, which we’ve written plenty about, has become so big that there’s no way any person could hope to keep track of all the price drops and deals that occur dozens of times in a day.
Fortunately, there are online services to uncover the best deals for you. Once such service is PriceZombie, which is a newcomer to the field but has high aspirations. Let’s take a look at how using PriceZombie can benefit you when spending money online.
The Web Service
PriceZombie’s website allows you to look up different items and check out their prices all over the Web. Type in any item, and you’ll be greeted with a number of partial matches. Choose a more specific item for details.
You can view the current prices at different stores, as well as the historic high and low prices at any one retailer. If you’re really interested in price trends, you can check out the graph, which will show you the movement in price over the past several months for the item in question. If nobody has the item at a cost you’re willing to pay, you can tell PriceZombie to alert you when it hits your desired level.
The Chrome Extension
The service gets even better, however, with its Chrome extension. Install it, and you’ll know when you’re on a compatible page based on a small icon in your omnibox. The extension works with dozens of online retailers, including Amazon, GameStop, Best Buy, Auto Zone, HP, IKEA, Newegg, Target, and The Home Depot. When you click the extension icon, you’ll get info about the item.
In the popup, you can view the historical pricing of this item at the current site (Newegg), see how much it costs now at other stores, or add it to your watchlist. It’s much more convenient than having to manually find the right item on the PriceZombie website.
To prove that the service is finding authentic prices, PriceZombie includes screenshots of the historical high and low prices. Find an item, and next to the extremes you’ll be able to view the screenshot of the other price – if you doubt that the app is doing its job, try this feature out.
If you’re not a fan of using Chrome extensions, PriceZombie offers a bookmarkletinstead. Bookmarklets are underrated alternatives to extensions that don’t run in the background – keeping your browser light.
Simply drag it to Chrome’s bookmark bar, and click your new bookmarklet when on an applicable page; you’ll be taken right to PriceZombie’s info for that item. It’s just as functional as the extension and for almost anyone using the service, it’s probably a better choice.
Other Useful Features
Price Trends
If you’re not looking for any specific item, but just to become more knowledgeable about shopping overall, PriceZombie’s Price Trends feature will prove interesting. Choose a category, like Books, Vehicles, Jewelry, or Appliances and you’ll see a chart detailing price trends of the past year for that type of item.
Evidently, book prices rise in the Autumn and Winter months, so buying them at another time would be wise. Let’s check another category: Movies and TV.
This group is the opposite of the above; the best time to buy Movies and TV is in the late Summer and Autumn. This tool is quite useful; try it and see if you’re a savvy shopper!
Price Protection
Many online retailers and some credit cards offer price protection – meaning that if you purchase an item and the price drops within a few weeks, you’ll be refunded the difference. This can be hard to keep track of, however, and differs depending on where you buy and what type of card you use. PriceZombie’s Price Protection Tracker takes care of the work for you.
If a price drop happens, you’ll be notified so you can be reimbursed. You’ll never be burned on a purchase again!
Lowest Prices And Price Drops
If you love browsing deals, PriceZombie’s Lowest Price Ever section can be a great place to find items cheap. This part of the site does not divide items by category by default, but rather shows products that have been discounted sharply. Once an item reaches an all-time low price, it will show up here.
Granted, because it determines this by a percentage, a product may only be a few cents cheaper than usual to be considered its lowest price ever. Not all items are like this, however, and you should check here often to find some discounted goods. If you’d like to only see certain categories on this page, you have that option, too.
Similar to the Lowest Prices page is the Price Drops page. Instead of showing items that are priced at historical lows, it shows items with the biggest reductions. This is the place where you’ll find discounts as huge as 90% off. At the time of writing, for instance, a pair of shoes normally priced at $47 was available for around $16. You can filter by category here, too, if you want to find more specific deals.
Get Shopping
With PriceZombie working for you, you don’t have to worry about getting a good deal when shopping online. A quick check when you’re about to make a purchase could end up saving you a lot of money; coupled with its other tools, it is essential for anyone who purchases goods online frequently.
PriceZombie’s extension is also available for Firefox, with Safari support on the way. The bookmarklet, however, will work in any browser.
If PriceZombie isn’t a fit for you, Yaara has covered some different Chrome extensions to enhance Amazon shopping. Or, if you’re looking for a Firefox add-on, check out Saikat’s review of Booly.
Do you use an extension for online shopping? How do you find the best deals? Leave a comment and help out your fellow shoppers!
Image Credits: Hand Via Shutterstock Source: www.makeuseof.com
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