Holiday Shopping Woes

Shopping, technology folks really are not the best shoppers around. So we need a little help along the way at times. And just about everyone likes a bargain to boot, so we took a look at some of the more interesting technical shopping stores around, to see if we could find a gadget or database, or something that would satisfy at least one family member and remove that permanent geek black sheep status at least for the day.

While there are a lot of sites out there, techbargains.com looked like a viable alternative, the RSS feed on “what is happening now” can be handy if you are stuck for a gift idea and want to see what is coming up. Coupons are good too, one of the thing we have noticed is that as talk of recession spreads, coupons and other kinds of discounts are going to be a major issue this holiday season. We think that a lot of companies are going to be giving away solid discounts in order to increase volume, while people sit on their checkbooks. Getting people to buy will be important, and folks are going to be pulling out many of the stops this year.

The more interesting part is that they have a mobile web site as well, which makes it easier if you are visiting, you can bring up the mobile page and let them help you find the gift, all without having to touch their PC in their house, so they have no idea what you are doing, meaning there will be at least some sort of surprise at the end of the gift giving.

If you are a blitzkrieg shopper, you can search for your stuff on every page, or just wander around the site by category, which is fairly common for many shopping sites. What makes this interesting is the “similar deals” link, click that and all the deals, with or without coupons, free stuff, take an extra 10% off shows up, meaning saves you time. Didn’t want to pay 9.99 for that USB stick? Here is a deal for you.

Oh and if you really hate shopping, they have e-mail, they will e-mail you deals every week, with links, so if you shop by digest, this is one way of approaching it. Just a simple weekly update with the things you are interested in. So if you are holding out for that gadget, this almost becomes a stock ticker in terms of pricing for the device. The site is worth checking out, they even carry dell coupons which can be really hard to find. But really good to have as well.