Resourceful consumers have devised a variety of strategies to save money beyond just buying fewer and cheaper holiday gifts.
To save money on gas, shoppers will shift some of their store purchases to the Internet. Some will plan ahead so that they make all their online purchases at once to reduce shipping costs. Others will buy in bulk from warehouses and club stores online.
Consumers will also time their shopping to capitalize on peak promotional times such as Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving that is the online equivalent of Black Friday), when Web retailers frequently offer free shipping and other price-cutting deals.
Other strategies include consolidating purchases, emphasizing basic necessities, using coupons, finding cheaper product alternatives, reducing gift spending, looking for sales and shopping online for deals, according to a July 2008 survey from comScore.
Consumers revealed a few ways in which they time their shopping to save money online and offline in a survey conducted for online coupon site RetailMeNot.com by Harris Interactive. Some 29% of respondents said they will shop early to avoid impulse buys, 19% will shop during Black Friday sales and 12% will wait until the last minute to get more discounts.
On the Internet, bargain hunters search for good deals by using search engines, price comparison sites (e.g., PriceGrabber and Yahoo! Shopping), coupon Websites (e.g., BFAds.net and CoolSavings), e-mail newsletters and advertisements, according to the Harris Interactive survey.
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