Suzanne O’Connor’s Bargains LA

Bargainist.com

Bargain hunting has always been in and right now getting a great deal is super hot. The new trend in 2010 is coupon use, freebies and discount codes. Looks like a lot of folks are jumping on the band wagon helping us find deals in town and on the web.

The Bargainist is a national website with coupons, discount codes and deals listed on everything from designer boots to electronics. Recent leads to online deals include a Guess boots at 40% off, a Nike Coupon, a 70% off at ShopBop, and a 25% off a $30 purchase at Pro Flowers and a Nikon Coolpix L20 camera for $90 instead of $120.

They cover a lot of goods at discount websites but they also get and post links and info on less common savings like a 20% off coupon for Kenmore kitchen appliances at the Great Indoors and a 62% savings at at the Watchery on a Movada Junior Sports Chronograph watch.

You’ll also find a section with “How to” and “Money Saving” tips. Always useful for getting the best deal.

Bookmark this one. Visit it often. It’s fun and packed full of info and savings!

DealNews

Like low low pricing? Then you’re gonna love this.

DealNews.com is a neat little website that does a really good job of listing the best deals on the net. Everyday they list dozens of products at lowest price they could find, great sales and online discounts from electronics, computers, games and toys, to clothing, travel and more. They’re picky too, only referring us to stores that are reputable and they ban stores with a history of poor customer service

According to them that means,  we list the best deals period, regardless of our relationship with the seller.  Okay I’ll buy that.

On the day I visited I came across some promising sales and discounted product. The Disney outlet.com was having an additional 75% off sale. They also had:

 Shoebuy.com offers the Sumdex Bantambrief Notebook Briefcase, model no. PON-302, for $32.45. Apply coupon code “ACCESSSB” and the price falls to $27.45. With free shipping, that’s the lowest total price we could find by $5. It accommodates laptops with screens of up to 15.4”.

 Toys “R” Us has Nintendo’s hard-to-find Wii Fit with Wii Balance Board in-stock for $89.99. With shipping at $14.19, it’s the only online store we could find that’s taking orders.

 Amazon.com offers the Hi-Tec Women’s Multiterra II Low Hiking Shoes in Light Tan/Taupe (pictured) for $12.99. Shipping adds $4.98, but orders over $25 qualify for free shipping. Even with shipping, that’s the lowest total price we could find by $19.

You get the picture. If one of a kind online deals and serious savings make up happy this site will become a best friend.

DiscountJungle

My hot hair iron died this week. This grooming tool had become a staple around our house and having it die created, well, an issue. Replacing it quickly was imperative.
A quick trip to the neighborhood beauty supply found several cheaper versions at $39-$59 and the professional quality ones ran $189-$225… ouch!

After some online research, I realized that buying a higher quality hot iron was a better buy in the long run, I just had to find it at a deal. I looked through several of the pricing search engines & Price Grabber etc. for the brands I was interested in. I found one of the highest rated hot irons, a T3 Tourmaline on DiscountJungle.net. The retail was $200. I got it for $94.99 and then to appease the fashionista kid I had it send 2-day air for an additional $20.

It got here super fast (within 36 hours) and so beautifully shipped that I went back to peruse the site again.

There is a lot of audio home theater and car gear here. Everything from speakers and sub woofers to LCD monitors, equalizers, alarm systems, home theater systems, phones, TV tuners, small appliances, beauty products, antennas and so much more all at 33%-65% off. Most of the discounts were in the 35%-50% range.

Judging from the impeccable service, accurate pricing and quality of the product, I’d make Discount Jungle a regular website to visit when you’re looking for car accessories, home electronics or Audio/Video products. The only caveats are a 20% restocking fee applied to returned items and California residents pay sales tax.

So do your homework first. Be sure it’s what you want and then go for it. You’ll pay a lot less at Discount Jungle.

Ecost

One of the most sought after gifts for the Holidays is electronics… home computers, home theater and tech gadgets. Consumer electronics normally account for 25% of all holiday gifts.

ECost.com makes it easy to find bargains on those sought after computer and electronic gifts. They have over 100,000 different products from known manufacturers like Apple, Canon, Citizen, Denon, Hewlett-Packard, Nikon, Onkyo, Seiko, Sony, and Toshiba.

Mostly new closeout and factory refurbished items, you can find some terrific buys here. I especially like the Bargain Countdown page where they offer specific deals for a short amount of time.

A HP 1.66 Ghz notebook was Duo Wireless and had a 200GB Hard Drive, 17” screen. It was priced to move at $979. Steeper discounts are found on the Clearance Countdown page. A Nikon 6.0 Mega Pixel Coolpix S6 digital camera was priced at $295 instead of $399. There was only 23 hours left on that one.

Though some items are still near at an average discount showroom rate, most items are great buys, especially if you find an item that is a closeout. This is a site you check every day, especially if you know what you want. When it shows up you’ll be ready to pounce.

RefurbDepot

Finding electronics, home theater or appliances at a discount is near impossible due to manufacturer unilateral pricing polices. But there are tricks… buying floor models, last season, scratch and dent and refurbished product. The savings can be as little as 20% but more often are really steep… upwards of 80%.

www.RefurbDepot.com is an online store that sells only factory refurbished product. Here you’ll find a wide range of product from home theater to computers, scanners to telephones and anything in between.

I spotted some terrific deals here. A Samsung SP-P4251, 42” widescreen plasma HDTV is on Refurbdepot.com for $1,199.95 instead of the original list of $6,999. That’s an 80% savings! A HP Pavillion DV8113CL notebook would originally retail at $2000. But there is a refurbished one on this site at $999.A Panasonic KX-FPG376 plain paper fax is $89 instead of $220.

Most manufacturer-refurbished items will come with a warranty for 90 days to 2 years and meet original factory specs. It’s another way to save.

BargainJack

Calling all tech heads, electronic junkies and bargain hunting web heads!

A brand new website with links to the best deals and reviews of product is finally here. BargainJack.com only lists the very best deals available on the web without sidetracking his audience with a gazillion links to coupons and shipping deals.

Jack even adds his two cents on the deal and the product with his (obviously knowledgeable) opinion on the products and the discounts offered. He’s good at finding the best deals too! He found a Philips 50” Plasma HDTV at 52% off from Buy.com and a Sony DSC-W30 6MP digital camera for $220 and a Logitech X-530 5.1 5-piece multimedia speakers for $40 shipped… 50% off retail.

Quick, concise and to the point, you’ll find the best deals out of thousands in home theater systems, dinnerware, PDA organizers, headphones, wireless routers, LCD monitors, plasma TV’s and more. No girlie girl clothing or fashion here, just the items that are needed in our tech driven lives.

Just point and click your way to great deals. Yep, we like that!

EmergencyCafe

As a native Californian I have lived through 3 good sized earthquakes. The Sylmar quake from 1971 is one of my earliest scary memories. Most of us who have been here awhile take earthquakes seriously even though we live with it with the attitude “it goes with the territory”. But many of you new to Southern a California don’t know what you need or how to put together an emergency kit. Everyone in California should have one.

This is where Emergency Café comes in. Operated by Cari Butler, this entrepreneurial mom Emergency Preparedness began when her daughter started pre-school and was required to have a personal emergency kit. It occurred to her that everyone should have their own personal emergency kit at an affordable price. She now provides consultation services for families and businesses, as well as offering the Emergency Café line of kits.

For do it yourselfers you’ll find a check list of supplies to take to the store. For those of us with less time, you can purchase kits starting at $55 for a one person kit up to $205 for a five person kit. There are backpack kits for your car, pet kits, under the bed kits, tools, ladders… the basics all reasonably priced, all in one place.

Stop by www.emergencycafe.com for your emergency supplies.

Come on, get on it, it’s been 12 years since the last big quake! Some might say we’re over due for a good shake!

BargainOutfitters

Sleepless nights usually find me surfing the net. On one of these lunar surfing expeditions I stumbled across a site that infused me with bargain glee…. BargainOutfitters.com

This site is filled with lots of guy stuff like cameras, radios, camping supplies and government surplus items at prices that were more than reasonable if not down right bargain basement. I couldn’t pin point what got me so energetic. It probably was the deals in their Super Email Bargains like a Seth Thomas retro styled Alarm Clock for $9.97 instead of $39.99 ( 75% savings) or the portable Conair Back massager for $11.97 instead of $50. Perhaps it was the Pulsar women’s watch at $24.97 instead of $125 or the feather and down feather bed at $39 instead of $120.

As I scanned the site, the disappointment of missing the Night Owl specials from 12am-3am (CST) was overwhelming. Doesn’t 4:30 in the morning count? It was way too early for the lunchtime specials that run from 11:30 am to 2:30 pm CST, but at least, I could plan ahead. Both of these super buying times have already discounted merchandise marked down even more.

My gleefulness at this new find must have come from the ease of surfing the site along with the promise of a bargain on something I never thought I would have wanted. Like all good e-commerce sites, there is a phone number so you can call in your order or check on your orders status. I signed up for their e-mails so I wouldn’t miss any exceptional deals.
This site is more fun… and has better deals than hitting an outlet mall.

Amazon Outlet

With the holidays just around the corner and all of us trying to keep our information secure during online purchases, I thought I’d check into the outlets at a tried and true, major online store.

Amazon.com is a fairly priced website. The Amazon Outlet is an extension of the regular site with additional discounts of 10%-50% on a variety of items usually found on their site. This outlet section includes deals from the independent sellers that Amazon partners up with.

There is a ton of product here, from computers (both new and refurbished) to sundries, bedding, toys, electronics, books, apparel and so much more. If you shop Amazon, you’ll want to start your bargain search here.

A quick cruise around the site yielded deals in every section. I found a Phillips DVD recorder for $200 instead of $399. A Panasonic 5.8 Ghz cordless phone was well priced at $54. An Audiovox portable personal video recorder w/ 2.5 LCD was $74.99 instead of $219.

The apparel section was quite large with dozens of name and designer labels. A bit of something for anyone (guys and girls) from plus size to infant. The bedding section had a good selection of higher end bedding. No poly junk here. The toy section was huge and you can browse by age appropriate toys. Books and music were overflowing with choices. This on line outlet is huge!

With all the goodies available, you may never leave your home to shop again. Simply put…lots of tempting deals

Half

Sometimes when I am scanning the web, I may overlook the obvious. I was reminding of the obvious by an intrepid internet shopper this last month who pointed out www.Half.com and when I went back to look it over…. Well I loved the deals.

Half.com is an online market place, like Ebay where buyers and sellers come together. This isn’t an auction, prices are fixed, but the discounts on retail can range from 25%-70% off with most products hovering around 50% off.

Unlike Ebay, you can’t find anything and everything here. Half.com is limited to books, music, movies, video games and game systems. There is more than enough to look through in each category in both new and used. Besides the description and price they also rate the item for quality. But, like Ebay, Half.com is easy to navigate and straight forward to purchase or sell.

With back to school on my mind, I looked through the Textbooks superstore section. Here I compared a bunch of “Biology” (Hardcover, 2004) by Jane Reece and Neil Campbell. The Range of quality went from Acceptable to Brand New and the prices went from $64-$156 with the highest prices being in the acceptable range.

I also priced some X Box game system and found prices ranging from $75-$240. Some new, some refurbished all well described and a few with games.

Half.com is a useful source both for comparison shopping, evaluating market pricing and getting great deals. Start you hunt here and you may nab your best deal on your first visit.