Online shopping can get a little hectic. With hundreds of stores selling the same item at different prices, you are always left with a feeling that you might have missed out on the best deal. And what about sales and offers – are you sure you are shopping at the right time? Fortunately, there are a number of extensions for your browser that can enhance your online shopping experience and save money by getting the best prices possible.
Also read: 11 Strategies to Find Great Deals and Save Money
1. Retail Me Not
When it comes to finding coupon or discount codes for online retailers, Retail Me Not is one of the best names around. The site includes nearly every retailer you can think of, from a multitude of categories, including fashion, home, food, more fashion, Target, Walmart, Amazon and more. With the browser extension, you can skip having to copy and paste codes, as the browser will do all the work for you.
The site claims more than 5,000 retailers take part in its services, including Best Buy, Hotels.com, Macy’s, Sephora and more. When it comes to speciality holidays like Black Friday, Retail Me Not even adds a speciality page so that you can jump from the browser extension to the page and look for the best deals. Visit those online shopping sites, and the browser extension will handle the rest. Should you find a coupon on your own, you can even submit to the site so that others can enjoy it.
Also read: 12 Chrome Security and Privacy Extensions to Stay Safe Online
2. Capital One Shopping
Capital One Shopping is a browser extension available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and more that makes bargain hunting a breeze. This extension uses real-time data from other users to find you the best deals. First, when you view a particular item on a website, Capital One Shopping automatically scours the Web to see if any other online retailers have the same item for a cheaper price. It collates its results and displays them on a single page so that users can quickly scan the list and find the best price. In addition, it also shows users the top alternative products, which may snag them an even better deal.
Furthermore, when you pick a retailer and add an item to your cart, Capital One Shopping checks all of the available coupon codes it can dig up from the depths of the Internet. Additionally, it will automatically apply the one with the biggest savings. Finally, using Capital One Shopping will earn you Capital One Shopping Credits that can be redeemed for gift cards! The only downside to using Capital One Shopping is allowing the app to track your shopping habits. That being said, it can save you a ton of time and money.
Also read: Top 5 Android Wallets to Store Gift Cards, Tickets, and More
3. Keepa – Amazon Price Tracker
If you like shopping at Amazon.com, then this is a must-have extension for you. Keepa is an Amazon-only extension that adds a new section under the product details where you can see the price history of any product. A graph will show a complete history of the product price from the day it was listed, including Amazon price, new market price and used market price.
Furthermore, if you would like to wait for the price to drop, you can set your desired price, and Keepa will notify you when the product reaches that price via email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. It will also notify you of great deals every day in your favorite category, or you can check out related deals on its website to get recommendations. Browser extensions are available for every popular browser type including Chromium, Safari, Firefox and Opera.
Also read: How to Find the Best Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals
4. The Camelizer
The Camelizer is another Amazon price tracker that works similarly to Keepa by showing you the pricing history of items listed on Amazon. Users can view the price history of millions of products via easy-to-understand charts. These pricing charts are incredibly useful in determining when something may go on sale, which can help you save a ton of money. Furthermore, The Camelizer can help you curb impulse buys, as you may reconsider a purchase if you know you can get it cheaper at some point down the line.
In addition to handy pricing charts, The Camelizer also allows users to create product watch lists. When the price of an item in your watch list is reduced, you’ll receive an email notifying you of the sale.
Also read: How to Use Google Pay to Track Your Spending and Budget Your Money
5. Ibotta
Like Retail Me Not, ibotta is a site that helps online shoppers save by utilizing its browser extension to automatically save. In fact, the site claims shoppers save more than $150 a year by relying on it to help locate the best deals. The service works by activating cash back offers and clipping digital coupons, which will help you get cash back on all sorts of purchases. Like CouponCabin, ibotta is part cash back, part coupon site, so it’s the best of both worlds.
Retailers like Lowes, Walmart, REI, Gap, Cabela’s and more all take part in assisting customers with savings. There are more than 300 retail chains, movie theaters, restaurants, etc. that take part nationwide in the U.S. That’s more than 500,000 potential locations for saving online. Signing up is free, as is the Chrome-based browser extension. What differentiates ibotta from the competition is that it supports grocery delivery services like Instacart. Once you’ve earned up to $20, you can transfer the cash back balance to any account of your choice.
6. Honey
Honey is one of the most well-known and well-reviewed shopping extensions out there. The Honey browser extension automatically finds and applies the best promo codes at checkout. This meansers can focus on finding the right items rather than chasing discount codes into the far reaches of cyberspace.
The biggest appeal of Honey is the sheer amount of retailers it works with. There are approximately 30,000 shopping platforms where Honey to sniff out promo codes. This includes everything from grocery stores to travel websites. Furthermore, users can opt into Honey’s loyalty program, Honey Gold. Honey Gold awards users shop at supported retailers with points and can use redeem the points for gift cards.
7. Rakuten
Rakuten is another browser extension that scours the Web for better deals and automatically applies coupon codes. However, the big draw of Rakuten over other extensions on this list is its robust cashback system. Boiling it down, Rakuten rewards you for shopping. The way it works is simple: users create an account with Rakuten and install the browser extension. When you place an order, cash back is accrued in your Rakuten account once the order is confirmed.
Rakuten is able to do this thanks to its partnership with over 2500 major retailers, such as Kohl and Nike. These retailers pay Rakuten a commission for sending shoppers their way. Rakuten then cuts its users in on that commission in the form of cash back. Users can be paid through PayPal or via a check. Rakuten also notifies users when cash back is available. This makes it easy to shop around to try and maximize your cashback rewards.
8. Avast SafePrice
This one is just amazing when it comes to finding the best deals (and safe deals as well). Avast SafePrice comes from reputable antivirus software creator Avast, so you should expect a little focus on “safe” online shopping. It finds the best deals on multiple websites and offers you the lowest prices from one of the most reputable dealers. I have tried it on multiple websites, including Amazon, eBay, Best Buy, Groupon, etc., and clicked on random items. 80 percent of the time it managed to find a better price while saving at least 30 percent.
If it finds any lower prices, it shows it on the top of the website you are browsing. You can click on the lowest offer to go directly to the page and also see a list of all the lower prices. It will not recommend anything if it doesn’t find any better prices. For me, it took approximately three seconds to show the better deal after the page loaded. Furthermore, it will also find and add coupons automatically if available.
9. Fakespot
One of the ways consumers are fooled is through product reviews. Sellers can pay people to leave glowing reviews of their products to entice potential customers. As its name implies, Fakespot identifies these fake reviews on Amazon and other online retailers. Furthermore, Fakespot also conducts real-time analysis of third-party sellers. This lets you know if they’ve been less than honest in the past, so that you can reconsider buying from them. Overall, Fakespot gives consumers peace of mind and provides much-needed quality assurance in eCommerce.
Also read: 11 Common Facebook Marketplace Scams to Beware Of
10. CouponCabin
At first glance, Coupon Cabin might look like yet another coupon site. Where it both exceeds and differs is that it doubles in alerting you to cash back opportunities along with helping you uncover coupon codes. Think of a combination of Rakuten and Honey in one extension! There are more than 4,000 cash-back partner stores with up to 20 percent cash back available (amounts will vary).
On top of that, you can shop with more than 18,000 partners for coupons, deals, offers, codes and more. Better yet, some of these deals help you find special buys on gift cards, allowing you to save even more by buying gift cards at less than face value. It’s a win-win for online shoppers. One limitation to be aware of is that you cannot earn cash back on orders placed online and picked up in store or through an individual retailer’s mobile app.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Don’t most of these sites duplicate functionality?
In many cases, these sites offer duplicate functionality even as each tries to differentiate itself. Ibotta supports online grocery shopping, Retail Me Not lets you add codes for the whole world to try, Fakespot helps you shop on Amazon with confidence, etc. For the most part, the coupon codes between sites should be the same, but each one offers something a little different. All of these sites will help you save, so use all of them or just one.
2. Can you still save money if you don’t use any of these sites?
Of course, you can always look for online advertisements that indicate upcoming deals or wait for specialized sale weekends like Black Friday. Realistically, using these sites helps take a lot of the guesswork out of how to save online – it does all the work for you. All you need to do with any of these browser extensions installed is shop as you normally would. The additional steps are limited at best, and at worst, require one or two additional clicks.
3. What about using a site like Acorn?
Great question! Acorn’s Found Money extension is a really great way to save and invest. In this case, instead of getting cash back directly to an account of your choosing, Acorn rounds up all of your purchases to the nearest dollar and invests the balance. For example, if you spend $42.33 at Walmart, Acorn would take the remaining 67 cents and place it into an investment account that you set up. You can then withdraw the money as part of a checking account to an IRA or even use a robo-advisor that can help guide you on investment strategies.
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