Online
guide for holiday shoppers
By
Alex Forsyth
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
The holiday shopping season has begun and malls are crammed full of people
searching for the greatest gifts at the best price. “Black Friday” is
what retailers call the day after Thanksgiving — the busiest shopping
day of the year. Retailers bring out their sales and some open as early as
5 a.m.
However, some people choose not to witness those long lines and fistfights
over the last iPod or Xbox. More and more shoppers opt to go online and began
their hunt the Monday after Thanksgiving, surfing the Web after returning to
work from the holiday weekend. Many Web retailers offer several incentives
for those who choose to browse their monitor instead of the mall. After doing
a little hunting of my own, I came up with the top 10 Web sites holiday shoppers
should consider visiting.
Shopzilla.com
Before pursuing your holiday shopping online, go here. Shopzilla.com is a comparison
Web site that helps shoppers find the best deals on the Web, providing over
25 million products in over 45,000 stores. Just go to the search engine, enter
an item and it may come up with pages of results. You can sort by lowest to
highest price.
This site offers the total price, including shipping and tax.
Target.com
This site is very organized and straightforward. I appreciate the bonus “gift
finder” that allows you to search “for him” or “for
her,” or by price or age. Once you click on an option, it brings you
to categorical choices ranging from “cool electronics,” “gourmet
goodies” or “fun stuff.”
Circuitcity.com
This site gives several search options, whether it be televisions, cameras,
computers or music. They offer a guarantee that once an order is placed to
be picked up, it will be ready in 24 minutes or less, otherwise you receive
a $24 gift card. This site is somewhat comprehendible, but almost gives the
consumer too much to choose from on one page.
Toysrus.com
For a toy store Web site, this is somewhat bland. That aside, if you are shopping
for a younger sibling or child, this may be just the place to look. The site
allows you to browse by age or category. There are options to let you personalize
gifts: just click on the link “Personalized by Toys R Us.” Here
you can find dolls like Elmo or Dora the Explorer which can be programmed to
say the child’s name. The best feature of this site is its virtual catalogue,
which proves to be more eye-catching than the entire site.
Overstock.com
This site is overwhelming at first glance. This is a popular outlet-shopping
site that promises the best prices, or they will pay the difference. Similar
to a department store, this site offers everything from jewelry and clothes
to chocolate and wine. The site enables you to browse by department or item.
It also provides a link to the site’s top holiday gifts as well as liquidation
bins for bargain hunters.
Victoriassecret.com
This site is extremely organized and easy to use. There are always several
items on sale are displayed on the homepage. For the holidays, the site is
offering guaranteed delivery by Christmas if ordered by Dec. 23. However, after
doing a little research, I eventually found that Christmas delivery offer costs
an extra $23.95. As a special feature this site offers what they name the “wish
list.” It is a feature that can be used to save your favorite items on
your own personal shopping list to send to someone as a hint, or to share as
good gift ideas.
Sephora.com
This site is effortless and self-explanatory. It offers “best gifts” ideas
and provides options for both over and under $50. Like many other sites, it
offers free shipping for orders over $75 as well as free gift-wrapping and
free samples. It offers sorted links to make it easy for those browsing to
find anything from makeup to fragrance to skincare. If you click on a link
to view a product, the site gives the name and a picture of the product, a
thorough description of the product and the price, all helping make the process
of gift-buying more simple. Sephora offers several brands all in one tidy place.
Jcpenney.com
This site has a simple layout. It provides a regular search engine and several
holiday deals on its homepage. I clicked on the link “great gift ideas
to get you started,” thinking this might be a great feature of the Web
site, but it took me to a promotional ad. I hunted the site to find a search
engine that would help me to “shop by price, person or theme” but
could not find it. Other than this glitch, the site offers an online outlet
store filled with savings of 30 to 70 percent.
Oldnavy.com
I found this site appealing and uncomplicated. Its homepage consists of four
different “styles” to search in such as “sporty, classic,
glamorous and comfy.” This method would seem more complicated because
you cannot type in “scarves” and come up with a result. On the
other hand, this site is systematized so if you are a woman looking for a scarf,
you just click on “women” and 13 categories come up to choose from,
the last being “hats, scarves & gloves.” The best part about
this site is the “gift center,” a small link on the right side
of the page that can be utilized to find gifts by price or style.
Kohls.com
This site is easy to use and offers several great deals on clothes and accessories.
Like other sites, they offer the search tool “gift shop” where
you can search by recipient, price or category. This store offers brands such
as Lee, Dockers or Levi’s. Without a doubt this site offers some of the
best deals I found while searching online.
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