October 13, 2020 - It may be the middle of October, but holiday shopping has already kicked off. And because of COVID 19, millions of new online shoppers have entered the market. Whether you are new to ecommerce… and yes, many of the people shopping online today had never done so before March of this year… or an experienced veteran, the prices you see when shopping aren’t necessarily the best. That's especially true for those limiting themselves to a few brand-name sites. Fortunately, there are some browser extensions that can help you save money. In fact, some of them can save you big money. But you need to know about them first, and you need to install them. We've picked a few of the better extensions to tell you about here, but first we're going to give you a brief what extensions do and what you should know about them.

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Browser Extension - What Are They?

Simply put, a browser extension is software that modifies some behavior in your internet browser. All of the more well-known browsers - Firefox, Chrome, etc… - offer them. And each of them maintains their own repositories for extensions.

Some extensions will cost you money. These are usually extensions that are used for business or convenience. For instance, there are extensions that will allow you to highlight contact information and with a couple of clicks, add that information to your address book. But most extensions are free to use. Or should we say, they won't cost you money. But they will likely come at the cost of some privacy.

For shopping extensions, like those we will go over here, that's especially true. For these extensions to work, they need to know where you are shopping and what you are shopping for. They will also require you to register with them. In return for that information, you'll save on your purchases. We'll go over how that works below.

The extensions we're going to cover here do comparison shopping. When you find a product you are interested in, they will tell you if you are getting the best deal. And if you are not, they will point you somewhere else to get the best deal. They are the modern equivalent of going from store to store in a mall looking the least expensive TV, but they are faster and don't involve any exercise.

Honey is one of the more popular shopping extensions. It works on a lot of websites, including Amazon where it will tell you if you are getting the best deal or if you should look at another Amazon merchant. What Honey won't do is tell you if there is another non-Amazon merchant that has a better price for the same item. Even so, it is an app worth having.

On websites that have promo codes, Honey will find those codes and apply them for you before you buy. That can save you quite a bit of money. It also has a feature known as Honey Gold, which allows you to accumulate points as you shop. Once you get 1,000 pieces of gold, you can get a $10 gift card. You can get Honey here.

Unlike Honey, Popcart does compare prices on Amazon to other websites. And that can lead to some much bigger savings. When you install Popcart, the extension will compare the price of the product you are looking at to other sites and then direct you the most economical place to purchase.

The way Popcart works is in its name. When you are looking at the product a pop-up box will appear in your browser window. That popup tells you how much you can save and where you should shop. All you have to do is click on it and you'll be taken to the correct website. You can get Popcart here.

Wikibuy is Capital One's price comparison extension. As such, I really debated including it in this list but I have to say that it showed the most savings on several items that I looked at. In fact, on one item that was priced at $57 on Amazon, Honey didn't show any savings, Popcart showed that I could save $17.50 by going to another merchant, and Wikibuy showed that I could save $23. Because of this, I'm including it. You can get Wikibuy here.

There are literally dozens of shopping extensions available and it can pay you to play around with them. You do need to keep in mind though that every time you add an extension to your browser, it will actually slow your browser down. If you have a new computer with a good processor and a lot of RAM, that probably won't be an issue. But if you have an older computer, or one that you purchased as a bargain brand, adding a lot of different extensions could actually make your online shopping experience miserably slow. In that case, you may just want to play around with a couple of these at a time.

When shopping with extensions, you also need to look at the overall cost of what you are purchasing. By that I mean, look at the price you pay with tax and with any shipping costs. Not all merchants will charge you sales tax when they are shipping across state lines. And not all merchants will ship for free. Shopping extensions aren't going to include those factors when you use them, but you should.

Rakuten - for rebates.

Priceblink - comparison shopping

All of these have the potential to save you money as you shop.

by Jim Malmberg

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