Stateless Systems are at it again. I’m a huge fan of their two biggest sites, BugMeNot (a way to bypass compulsory website registrations) and RetailMeNot (a vast coupon codes site). Now with BeatMyPrice, they’re turning competitive shopping and price comparison searches into a game. And we’re all winners.
BeatMyPrice has a fantastically simple home page. You just plug in the name of the product, the web address where you found it and the price it’s selling for. Seconds later, you receive results that are pulled not just from other search engines, but that users have submitted. And a “target price” sliding scale lets you adjust for the ideal amount you’d like to pay. Then, you click on the link and go shopping.
Sites like Google Shopping, Bizrate and MySimon are good, and Kaboodle is fun, too, but there are people out there who are the Einsteins of bargain shopping. They are the bloodhounds of the internet, and when they find a stellar deal, they can now pass it on quickly and effectively with a search-engine comparison site like BeatMyPrice.
Big question; does it work? Well, I’ve been trying it out for a month now and so far, it’s definitely had the best prices for products WHEN it was listed on the site. Right now, as it is in its infancy, you may not find a price for the item you’re looking for. It seems to be a lot of electronics and gadgets at the moment. But as the site grows in popularity, the product database will grow, too.
I did a search for a D-Link DGL-4300 wireless router. Using my usual fallback, Google Shopping, the cheapest price I found was at Walmart for $138.77. As I hate giving money to WalMart anyway, I was happy to use BeatMyPrice to find a better deal. And it found one. Big time. Amazon had the same router for $105.78, plus a $25 rebate and free shipping. Grand total - $80.78, some $57.99 cheaper than the best I could find on Google Shopping. I was impressed.
Give it a try. And if you actually find that you have the cheapest price, it will become the price to beat on the site and you can be happy knowing you have saved future shoppers a bunch of cash. OR even a little cash. Either way, this is a service I’ll be using a lot.
(Prices listed above correct at time of article publication)
I'm also a huge fan of RetailMeNot.com. I hadn't heard of Beat My Price, and it looks great. I gave it a try with a few items. The key thing it seems to be missing is shipping costs.
While the $50 Buy It Now price on Ebay looks great for my Hoover vacuum, with $25 shipping it ends up being $15 more than Amazon. Maybe they'll add the feature soon?
The request has already been put in MANY times for shipping calculators. At the moment, everything I have searched for has been cheaper including shipping than anything else I have found, but I'm sure that won't be the case forever. Look for shipping estimates soon.
Perhaps it's a matter of it being new, but I've tried a couple of times with the same product (entering lowest price found vs. next lowest price found) and it doesn't always return the best deal. It would be great if it would allow you to enter the entire deal (rebates, shipping, price matching, etc.).
I found an MP3 player for $89.95 at a site, but wasn't willing to purchase from them. I tried Overstock and found it for $15 more. I tried to Online Price Match and managed to get the final purchase for $95, which would have been $98 (with shipping) from the first vendor. Got it through MyPoints so I earned some extras too.
Someone else who hates to give $$ to Walmart. I avoid Walmart if at all possible.. I've saved a ton of money by just not going.. I go Dollar Stores and if I should over spend might be like $20, at Walmart if I overspent it was like $100-$150.. I'm eager to try BeatMyPrice. Thanks.
I host a retail shopping site where I guarantee the lowest price and I am able to use BeatMyPrice.com for comparison before I post my products for sale. It allows me to be competitive even before I bring the merch to market on my site. It also helps me to keep from posting items I might lose on profit if someone found my merchandise higher priced than other sites. That said, it is a help to both consumers and suppliers. Thanks Stateless Systems!
I am all for bargain hunting and price comparison shopping, but my biggest concern is the quality of the item you are actually getting in the end. All items made come off the production line being graded A, B, C and D. The A items go to those distributors that pay and resell at a higher price. The D grade items as you can guess go to distributors that buy and resell them cheap. Example, USB memory sticks. Prices can really range from one place to another. The more expensive ones come with warranties for the chip. I have seen 4 GB ones with less than 1 GB of memory. I am not saying that you can’t get good product for an extremely attractive price, just make sure it is returnable and/or guaranteed.
