After our post yesterday ended up crashing the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ consumer information website, we received an email from them. They said they wanted to explain how the site works to address some reader questions, as well as point out that you too can contribute to the rankings by filing complaints when your insurer does something objectionable.
comparison shopping
Find Out How Much Your Insurer Sucks
By 8.27.09
So you suspect your health/auto/home insurer is run by the devil, but you’re not sure whether the alternative you’re considering is any better. Kiplinger Finance has posted a helpful article on how to find the complaint ratio of an insurer via the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ website. Update: here’s how to file your own complaint.
Are Dollar Stores Really That Cheap?
By 7.14.09
Kim McGrigg at Blogging for Change took a look at the dollar stores in her neighborhood and found that it can take some work to make sure you’re actually saving money. In fact, on a couple of items she actually paid a fraction more than what she would have at a superstore like Walmart. This matches what Consumer Reports’ shopping mag, ShopSmart, discovered in their recent “Dollar Mania” report (free PDF download).
Study Shows Mortuaries Vary Widely In Pricing
By 5.26.09
A non-profit group recently surveyed the prices at 49 different mortuaries and crematoriums in San Diego, and found that “prices vary widely, with some mortuaries charging nearly twice as much as others for similar combinations of services.” Although the study focuses on one city, it’s a good reminder that you should check around and not assume that pricing is consistent throughout the industry.
By 5.18.09
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If you own a G1 phone from T-Mobile, Google has added a special barcode scanning feature to its Product Search page just for you. Yeah, you’ve already got other barcode scanning apps, but this one integrates with Google’s search functionality so you can scan and see product search results in Google immediately. [Phandroid]
By 4.23.09
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If you have an iPhone or a G1, Google has just announced a new version of their Product Search specially formatted for those phones. Here’s a video demonstrating how the mobile version looks and functions. [Google Mobile Blog via IntoMobile]
Duane Reade May Want To Rethink The Instructions On Their Generic Sandwich Bags
By 4.4.09
Duane Reade wants you to compare their store brand sandwich bags to Ziploc’s bags, and you should, because Ziplcoc’s bags are $0.50 cheaper.
Watch Out For Supermarket Price Spikes
By 2.2.09
A penny-pinching reader discovered that Giant Eagle—a supermarket chain that heavily promotes a savings club where you earn slight discounts on gas—has some jacked up soup prices, especially on their private label. Remember, if you’re not comparison shopping among local supermarkets, you can expect easy-to-miss price spikes like this one to wipe out any savings you thought you were getting.
LiftSift Helps You Find A Ski Lift In Your Budget
By 1.6.09
Nate at Idea Shower (responsible for the awesome Read It Later Firefox extension) has created a nifty online tool to help you narrow down your ski and snowboard destinations. Visit LiftSift.com, adjust a few sliders to set your price range, vertical rise, and location, and compare away. The data behind the service is public so that users can add new locations or make updates when lift prices change.
Home Depot Website Prices Have Nothing To Do With In Store Prices
By 11.15.08
Remember, Home Depot’s price match policy doesn’t apply to online listings, including its own website. At his local store, Michael paid more than twice the online Home Depot price for a coaxial cable, but Home Depot refused to refund him the difference. They even say as much in small print on each page of their website. With Home Depot, be sure to call and get a valid local price quote before heading off to purchase something you saw online.
Guitar Center Adds $100 Premium To iPods
By 9.11.08
Update: Guitar Center has fixed the pricing error and offered refunds.
Quick, get out your throw-away cash and head to Guitar Center! Their website sells the iPod Classic and both sizes of the iPod Touch for $100 more than what you’ll find pretty much everywhere else. (We guess there’s extra rock-n-roll in them.) You know what makes us crazy? We bet people still buy them.
By 3.14.08
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Here’s the 35 most popular online price-comparison sites. Happy deal-hunting. [ProBargainHunter]
Tired Of Your Entrenched Service Provider? Consider A Local Alternative
By 2.3.08
Few consumers realize they can ditch their monopolistic service providers in favor of local, independent telecoms that often offer similar services at competitive rates. These smaller outfits depend on service, not size, as reader Sharpstick recently discovered:
In the Charleston SC area we are fortunate to have local a internet / phone / cable provider called Knology that has made customer service an art form.
Harvard Bookstore: "We Own ISBN Numbers"
By 9.24.07
The Harvard Crimson ran a story last week about a student who was asked to leave the premises for writing down the prices of six textbooks at the Coop, Harvard’s bookstore of record. The bookstore’s president says that there’s no official policy against students writing down information, but “we discourage people who are taking down a lot of notes.” But what’s more surprising, he tells the Crimson that the textbooks’ ISBNs—which can be used to look up the same books online—are “the Coop’s intellectual property.”
New Farecast Service Tells You Whether That Hotel Rate Is Really A Deal
By 9.13.07
Farecast.com is testing a great new feature that evaluates a hotel’s given rate, then tells you how much of a deal it really is when compared to past quotes and fares at similar hotels, says the New York Times:
The $179 rate for a room at the Hyatt Regency was listed as “average” because it was 28 percent more expensive than rates at that hotel on the same date in past months, according to Farecast. It was also 13 percent more than recent Friday-to-Monday stays at the same hotel.
Easily Compare Best Credit Card Offers
By 4.4.07
Bankrate has a very handy online tool for comparison shopping for a credit card.
Comparison Shopping Actually Saves
By 2.25.07
We intrinsically know comparison shopping saves money, but according to the Chicago Tribune, we don’t compare enough. Though we all think we compare prices, “research shows consumers, time and again, are most likely to buy from the first merchant they visit.”
“Prices for identical goods vary, and unless you actually do some comparison shopping, you’re not going to know that,” Lichtenstein said. “Consumers say, `Well, I may be paying a little bit more, but I don’t have time to shop around.’ But if they knew the degree to which prices may vary, they would find it’s well worth it.”
Our grandmother knows the price of grapes in every supermarket in at least five states. The Trib has helpful reminders to become more like her.
- Don’t overvalue your time: small savings add up over time to make a big difference.
- Take advantage of the internet: if you know what you’re looking for, plug it into “Froogle, MySimon, Shopzilla, DealTime and Shopping.com.”
- Take a test: search for the last few expensive items you bought and see if you could have saved more.
If that doesn’t help, remember that comparison shopping is the bedrock of our wonderful capitalist economy. If you won’t compare for yourself, compare for your country. — CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER
