Editor’s note: This article was first published in December 2011. The ranking of price comparison sites comes from the Spanish magazine Personal Computer in late 2011. The market has changed a lot since, and several of these services no longer operate in Spain or at all.
We are entering the biggest shopping season of the year, Christmas, when buying things is practically compulsory. Online price comparison sites can help us save sums that are far from trivial, because the same product can vary enormously in price depending on where you buy it.
Comparing shop by shop is clearly a near-impossible task, since there are thousands of shops online. That is why price comparison sites become essential at this time of year. To take one example, when buying a laptop we could find a difference of more than 100 euros by comparing prices.
Hard drives, Nintendo 3DS consoles and even products such as the iPad or iPhone can also vary by more than 60 euros. Below we list the different price comparison sites, based on the quality ranking drawn up by the Spanish magazine Personal Computer. At the end of the article we also give some basic tips to keep in mind when using them.
The most effective price comparison sites at the moment are the following:
- Twenga: This comparison site got Personal Computer’s top rating for offering the widest range and good prices. A very complete catalogue and a wide variety of shops, although it has no user reviews and you will probably come across many unknown shops, though being unknown doesn’t make them bad.
- Kelkoo: Second place in the ranking. It includes shops such as Amazon, eBay and El Corte Inglés, although its weak points may be mobile support and filters.
- Shopmanía: Ready and prepared for Christmas, with a considerable increase in its range of products, although its weak point may be buying books and/or films.
- CIAO: A fast and effective search engine on a platform that gives much more weight to user comments than to product prices. The products we find on CIAO may not be the cheapest, but it tends to list the best-known shops.
- Google Shopping: Many users may disagree with putting Google’s comparison site in fifth place, thinking it should be first, since it is one of the most complete and varied. Simply put… it’s Google.
- Nextag: Finally, another complete comparison site with a wide variety of products, although according to Personal Computer it needs to fix some problems with its product categories.
Tips for using price comparison sites
1. Price isn’t everything: As well as comparing prices, you should take into account the payment method, shipping costs and delivery time.
2. User reviews: Ignore extreme reviews, because competitors are often quite malicious when trying to get ahead by running down their rivals. Look at what most users think.
3. Use more than one comparison site: If you’re out to save, don’t settle for the results from a single site. Use several, because some include shops that others don’t, and you may find a price difference there.
4. An unknown shop is not a bad shop: A shop with an established name obviously inspires confidence, and sometimes that confidence and the brand’s reputation are built into a product’s price. An unknown shop can have incredible deals and be just as reliable as a well-known one. In some cases it will even make much more effort to give you better value for money in order to win customers and keep growing.
Happy shopping!
Featured image: Pavlemadrid commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
