2007 January archive at ProBargainHunter.com

Archive for January, 2007

Sizeasy — helping hand in online shopping

Published January 18th, 2007 in Money Saving Tips. 0 Comments

Sizeasy

There are some things I never buy online and these are clothes and shoes. Even though they are supposed to conform to a predefined set of sizes, each manufacturer seems to be using their own measuring tape, and some times “L” is too big while other times it is too small. I have to fit everything I wear before I buy it.

There are things however that come with precisely known dimensions (e.g. household items and consumer electronics). Unfortunately this fact doesn’t help me much while shopping. Knowing dimensions and getting the feeling of how big the thing is are two different things. Besides I was brought up in a country with metric system widely in use and 2 feet 5 inches doesn’t really say much to me.

One way to solve the problem is to search for a review like this where things are shown in proportion. Another way is to use Sizeasy, a new online tool, which is all about taking the size comparison guesswork away from you.

Sizeasy allows you to compare dimensions of items you find described on the web often. Many online stores show the dimensions of items like Product Dimensions: 192×45x32mm. Although useful this doesn’t give us a feel for the real size of the item that we would get going into a high street store. Sizeasy allows you to take this size information and see it drawn out to scale next to everyday items so you get a real feel for its size.

Said enough, go and check out this wonderful visualization tool. Pictured above is the size of iPod Nano compared to a drinking can and a box of matches.

Sizeasy (via Del.icio.us)

$40 off $199 Circuit City in-store coupon

Published January 16th, 2007 in Shopping Coupons. 0 Comments

Update 01/31: Circuit City has prematurely expired the promotion. Here is the message from the website:

Circuit City is no longer participating in the AllConnect “Getting You Plugged In” Coupon Offers.

Because an error in production regarding limitations occurred, we had no choice but to expire this offer. We apologize for any convenience or disappointment this may cause you, our valued customer.

Promotions as good as this one don’t come very often from Circuit City.

To redeem print this page and go to your local Circuit City. Having trouble printing the page? Here a link to a PDF file. The offer expires March 31, 2007.

CircuitCity coupon

Source: SlickDeals Forums (via WiredDeals)

Amazon discount codes

Published January 16th, 2007 in Shopping Bargains. 8 Comments

Ever since I wrote about Amazon shopping tips and hacks last November the article has been the most visited page on ProBargainHunter. In case you missed it -- the post describes how you can browse discounted merchandise on Amazon (by messing around with the URL's) and lists a few other useful tips.

The article featured on LifeHacker and Consumerist and even prompted some people to create tools for easy URL building.

Below is my own attempt to summarize the information from that blog post into a more usable format. Click on the links with discount codes below to browse Amazon merchandise, and let me know if you notice any broken links. It was a large number of codes to compile and verify after all!

Department	Discount
Amazon US
Apparel:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Beauty:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Bed & Bath:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Books:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Camera & Photo:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Cell Phones & Service:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
DVD:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Electronics:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Furniture & Decor:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Gourmet Food:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
GPS and Navigation:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Grocery:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Health & Personal Care:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Home & Garden:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Jewelry & Watches:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Kitchen:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Magazines & Newspapers:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Musical Instruments:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Office Products:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Outdoor Living:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Pet Supplies:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
PC & Add-Ons:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
PC & Video Games:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Shoes:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Software:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Sports & Outdoors:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Tools & Hardware:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Toys & Games:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Amazon UK
Department	Discount
Books:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
DVD:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Electronics & Photo:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Gadgets:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Home & Garden:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Music:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
PC & Video Games:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Software:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Toys & Kids:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Travel:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Video:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Amazon Canada
Department	Discount
Books:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
DVD:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Music:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
PC & Video Games:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Software:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%
Video:	90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%

Take the results you see with a grain of salt though. I noticed that Amazon often stocks items for a very long time. As fast as the prices for electronics go down it is funny to see a 32" LCD TV listed for $15,000 and discounted down to $1000. That makes one hell of a bargain!

The table layout idea is courtesy of Brand-Name-Coupons (via Digg)

Commercial break (a kind of)

Published January 16th, 2007 in Interesting / Other. 1 Comment

Jajah Shirt I have been enjoying writing at ProBargainHunter for several months now. Discovering bargain hunting websites, learning money saving tricks, and reading your wonderful feedback is what makes me sit long sleepless nights in front of my laptop. There are days however when I feel extra rewarded and today is one of them.

FinancialWeb

FinancialWeb is an independent financial portal full of personal finance related educational resources. The kind of information you will find there varies from mortgage to taxes and from insurance to credit cards. FinancialWeb has been sponsoring ProBargainHunter for a while (see their banner at the front page) and today they renewed the contract for 3 more months. Give them a visit at FinWeb.com and if you happen to drop them a note say “hi” from Yan at ProBargainHunter!

Jajah

I wrote about Jajah back in November. Free international calls is what many will find attractive with Jajah. Apparently the team liked my November review so much that they decided to send me a special “thank you” gift. The company shop in Europe wouldn’t send it to the US and Frederik Hermann, the marketing manager in the US, went as far as arranging it to be hand-delivered with his friend visiting Europe at that time. Today the shirt came in the mail. What can I say, I am flattered!

Credit card balance transfers made easy (Poll)

Published January 16th, 2007 in Money Saving Tools. 5 Comments

Credit Cards I am sure many of you receive credit card offers in the mail. There are quite a few providers in the US and each of them has to fight over the market share with its peers. The result is — my mailbox gets stuffed every day with offers from Citibank and Chase despite the fact that I already have a credit card from both :-(.

One of the most popular marketing techniques is to offer the potential new client a lucrative balance transfer deal in an attempt to get them on the hook. Many of these offers come with a catch: a balance transfer fee or a high interest rate (after the introductory period if over).

Ziv Yirmiyahu, a co-founder of online credit card directory CreditCardClients, has tipped me on a new tool they launched last week which is supposed to make your life easier in case you do decide to take on one of these offers. Savings Agent is a free online flash application that automates the process of selecting the best credit card deal for your balance transfer related needs.

It takes the fine print of the offers, including multiple interest rates for each offer, balance transfer fees, annual fees and more, and utilizes complex calculations. Together with a debt profile from the user, the Savings Agent uses a database of over two hundred credit card offers to present each consumer with the top 10 credit cards that will save them the most money

You start with filling out information on your current credit card (card type, balance and monthly payments & purchases), then you enter your credit score (if you know it), and at the last step you are presented with the credit card offer that presumably fits your needs the best.

CardWeb, a popular credit card portal, has some interesting stats that are indicative of why a tool like this has a great market potential. Here are results from a few of their polls:

Do you pay an interest rate of more than 20% on any of your credit cards?

Yes 29.72%

No 68.29%

Don’t Know 1.97%

Did you transfer any credit card balances to lower interest credit cards or other loans in the past six months, and if so, how much did you transfer totally?

$20,000+ 8.81%

$10,001-$20,000 12.88%

$5,000-$10,000 17.89%

$2,500-$5,000 15.42%

$1-$2,500 11.21%

none 33.77%

The important numbers here are “around 66% have taken on a balance transfer offer in an attempt to reduce the interest rate” (balance transfers are popular) and “almost 30% are paying over 20% interest rate” (there is still a potential). CreditCardClients is paid for each converted client and the credit card affiliate market is known for good commission rates.

I gave the Savings Agent a few runs and I really like the design and simplicity of the tool. The only negative comment I have is that I would like for the end result to have better transparency along with more detailed explanation on why the suggested offer saves as much as it does and where it stands compared to other alternatives. I am very much a “do it yourself” type of person and I tend to look skeptically at everything unless I can see how it works.

In any case the tool is certainly worth bookmarking. I personally plan to give it a try when my current 0% balance transfer offer expires. Meanwhile lets run a little poll here to check how ProBargainHunter readers compare to the average American. Do you carry a credit card balance?

ProBargainHunter.com

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