Taking the sweat out of online shopping

By Richard Scott
Personal finance reporter, BBC News

It's fair to say that the internet has revolutionised our shopping habits.

Comparing shops online saves serious legwork

Where once we had no choice but to traipse up and down the High Street looking for the best deal, now we can do it from the comfort of our armchairs.

But there are disadvantages too. The High Street is on a relatively small scale. You can see the shops you want and simply head in their direction.

But the internet is almost too vast to contemplate - and you've got to hunt for the shops that you want to visit.

If you don't know where to go, then you could end up with a worse deal than you would have got using up your shoe leather.

There are now websites around which try to guide people through the online maze. One of these, Haggle4me, aims to get you the best possible deal.

Bargain hunt

The idea is pretty simple. You put in the best price you've found (with however much or little effort you want) for whatever it is you're after - let's say it's a new television for £600.

Other visitors to the website then search the web using their contacts and try to get you a better deal - let's say they find the same TV for £500. That means you've saved £100.

As long as you've saved at least £20, then you pay a fifth of the saving to the haggler who found the deal - so in this case £20.

Finding a bargain takes time, even online

The haggler then pays a quarter of their fee to the website (in this example, £5).

There does seem to be little to lose - as long as you try to find the best price you can in the first place.

If you put in a manufacturer's recommended retail price (RRP), for example, the saving might be huge but then the haggler's fee would be much larger too.

You can often beat RRP prices very easily by simply using one of the many price comparison websites out there (Kelkoo or Pricerunner, for example).

That brings us to the big drawback of Haggle4me: time. Most of us are impatient and once we've decided we want something, we want it there and then.

But to give the hagglers a chance to get you a better deal, you need to give them time - the more the better. And that's obviously going to delay your purchase.

Easy way to eBay

As well as buying things online, you can also sell your unwanted items. The online auction site, eBay, is one of the net's major success stories.

But listing your items can take a long time, especially if you haven't done it before.

And you'll need to monitor the auction, answer any questions from potential buyers, and arrange delivery or collection. And people without a computer can't take advantage of it at all.

Novice eBay vendors can pay firms to do the work for them

To solve these potential problems, a new type of business is springing up - and this time it's happening on the High Street.

Chains of shops will take your unwanted items and then list them on eBay for you.

They do all the hard work, including the description, photographing your item and posting it afterwards.

But again, there's a catch. Generally they take a third of the sale price as their commission, with the minimum commission £10. So with lower value items, you could end up getting back little or even nothing.

These new ideas for buying and selling online could work well for those who don't have the time - or inclination - to do the work themselves. But of course, you're likely to get the best deal of all by doing things yourself.

It's a bit like getting someone in to do your garden. Usually they're not doing anything special, but they are saving you time and effort, and you'd expect to pay for the privilege.

Richard Scott's report on online shopping will be shown on the Six O'Clock News on BBC1 on Wednesday, 14 June.