Turn your brower into a lean mean shopping machine

Recently I was lucky enough to upgrade my laptop. This makes me extremely happy since its approximately 100 times faster than my last beloved laptop (I swear changing laptops was like breaking up with my hairdresser, I felt guilty as sin, whilst loving my new choice) However what made me significantly less happy was re-setting up all my browser settings/add-ons, essential bookmarks and preferences.

I had my browser perfectly set up for shopping. I had a toolbar which alerted me to coupons, easily accessible bookmarks for sniping ebay auctions, saving items for when they dropped in price, and an add on that saved me from filling out repetitive checkout details and even a special toolbar to help me discover new stores. So rather than get frustrated, I’ve written down all my add on’s, and essential bookmarks to keep my online shopping organised…

First things first – Just like good underwear is the base of a good outfit, a good browser is essential to an excellent online shopping experience.

Now, I promise not to go all tech-nerd here and push my views onto you (*cough* It’s all about Firefox people *cough*), but yes, I am one of those people that absolutely hates Internet Explorer and thinks Mozilla Firefox is the far superior product. I’ll try to keep this under control over the next few paragraphs but IE users, please upgrade to mozilla whilst I’ll always try to offer you an alternative, keep in mind it’s not my area of expertise.

Coupon Codes are your friend

I ALWAYS look for a coupon code when shopping online. There are only a few stores that I don’t bother searching for them (Forever 21 comes to mind of the top of my head).  And I NEVER limit myself to just one site, although I do have some specific favourites…

Retail Me Not Toolbar
Retailmenot is an american site which boasts coupons for over 20,000 sites.  I was a bit hesitant about installing this at first, but have found it to be really really useful when you’re looking at a new store and are not sure if they have coupons. It just installs a little shopping tag on the bottom right hand corner and if that goes green on a store, you click on it, and a new window opens up to the store’s retailmenot.com page.Now, there are a few things to keep on mind – not every coupon ends up on here, and certain stores have actually asked to be not included on retailmenot. Plus, it can be a bit spammy – try looking up eBay or etsy coupons to get an idea of what I mean – but on the whole the benefits outweight the negatives.
Firefox – The Firefox Toolbar:  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4980
Internet Explorer – Bookmarklet: http://www.retailmenot.com/
Mac Dashboard Widget: http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/shopping/hotcoupons.html

Other sales and coupon essential bookmarks for all browsers are:
The Vogue Forum’s Sales Board, The Purse Forums Deals & Steals Forum, Coupon Tweet for coupons and codes tweeted by other users, and of course or own fabulous NSO Discount Codes & Vouchers Page :)

Work eBay like a pro

My number one tool for avoiding an eBay bidding war is bidding scheduler. The main reason it’s made it into my brower must haves? Its totally free to snipe. Like, forever!

Another eBay essential is Toolhaus.org. This one is cruical for sifting through feedback, just pop in the sellers username and it will instantly show you just the negatives received by a seller. It can be, shall we say educational?, to see all those neutrals one after the other and give you the bigger picture of the sellers general practices. This is just one of the things you can do on toolhaus, but its the one I use the most.

Save Shopaholic Anguish by getting instantly notified when something you want goes on sale

I just adore Shopping Notes. When you see something you like but don’t want to pay full price for, just hit the shopping notes bookmarklet on your browser, and up pops a window; enter your email and close the window. Then when the item goes on sale, they’ll shoot you an email telling you the new price. Love it!
Shopping Notes Bookmarket (Firefox, IE & Mac): http://www.shoppingnotes.com/help/install.firefox

Why does my name have to have so many letters?!?!

Do you get sick of filling out your name, address, telephone number, billing address, shipping address etc? God knows I do, which is why I use a form filler. Form Fillers are nifty little add ons which when you press a specific key combination it automatically fills out your details. How neat is that? You can even have multiple profiles – I for example have one for when I want things sent to work, one for home, and one for my US Address. A word of caution though: Many will give you the space to put your credit card number in them, but I don’t recommend it. And let’s face it, I bet you all know your credit/debit card numbers off by heart. Am I right?!
Firefox – Formfiller Add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1882
Internet Explorer: RoboForm is meant to be the best, but you have to pay to use it

Damn those US stores that need a postcode to estimate shipping

Not really browser specific, but a good tip: Since I can’t for the life of me remember my US address’s postcode, here is a little tip: 90210 It’s a valid postcode, and thanks to growing up with Brandon, Brenda and Co, permanently embedded in my brain. Never say the only thing you learnt from 90210 was that nice girls don’t go all the way until they are in college.

I’m bored and I want to shop

Head to the Never Shopped Out Online Shopping Directory :) No seriously, when you’ve gone through the 1000 plus stores and still want to shop more? Well, you need Stumble Upon! Head here for our review on stumble upon shopping

Looking for more sites to help you shop? Head to our  recently updated
ref=”index.php/home/sites-to-help-you-shop.html” target=”_blank”>Sites to Help you Shop page!