Online shoppers’ have more tools than ever to find the best value for their money. Value being the highest quality item for the best price. These are a few of the tools that I use on a regular basis whether shopping online, or occasionally actually "driving to a store." 
If you have some of your own that you love, feel free to share them in the comments.
Shop for the best
One of the best features of online shopping is that you can find out a lot about the product before ever touching it. You have access to just as much information as the salespeople at traditional stores. You can find out what customers who were purchasing the same item bought and what they liked and didn’t like. Whenever I am going to be purchasing a product that costs me more than a few bucks I check out these places to find out what brand and model I should buy.
ConsumerReports.org – They are a not-for-profit company that reviews thousands of products and have no advertising in their magazine – therefore eliminating any potential conflicts of interest. They have an online subscription for $26 a year or $6 for a month of access. If you are buying a car or any other sizeable purchase, I highly recommend signing up. I have had very good results from their reviews so far.
Amazon.com
ePinions.com – I really don’t like ePinions that much. I check them occasionally just to get additional opinions on an item if I need it.
Circuitcity.com – Most times they don’t have as many reviews as Amazon does, but for electronics purchases I will often check them.
Buy the cheapest
I have been very pleased with the free shipping with Amazon Prime thus far, but even with the free shipping, there are occasionally better deals to be found.
eBay.com – eBay is often a great place to find a rock-bottom price on any given product. If you are willing to get a USED item, of course you will be able to save even more.
Pricegrabber.com - This is a service that does comparison shopping for you. They look at hundreds of sites that sell the same products and list them by price for you.
Find bargains online
If you are ever buying from a retail store you can always Google "brand name or store name" + "coupon" or "promo code." This will often yield some coupons that you may be eligible for. Most of the Google results you will find will come from Retailmenot.com or one of 1,000 other coupon websites.
Slickdeals.net – Look for hot deals here and also at FatWallet.com
Woot.com – A cool and clever site that features one closeout product each day. Once they are gone, they are gone. So, if it is a hot item, it will be gone before you wake up in the morning.
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For finding great deals from Amazon.com I use a site called jangle.net. It’s easy to use and has several ways to find bargains.
http://www.jangle.net
Great post. I think people don’t like Epinions because the reviews aren’t very helpful- probably because people get paid to write reviews there.
I work for consumer review site Buzzillions.com, and we gather our reviews from our 150+ clients (Staples, RadioShack, REI, Overstock, Adorama etc etc) and we post them on http://www.Buzzillions.com . (What they get in return is licensing our consumer review technology). This way, we can verify whether the person writing the review has actually bought the product or not- a Verified Buyer.
Another cool thing is that you can narrow down your search to your needs. For example, if you have hardwood floors and are a pet owner, you would want to find the best vacuum cleaner rated by people with the same needs.
Also, because we have a wide range of retail clients, you can compare prices on each product to find the best deal.
Try it out http://www.buzzillions.com
happy saving!
@Keith and Emma
Thanks for sharing – I will check them out…
Hi!
I have known the lead engineer for Become.com for years, Jon Glick, who used to work at Altavista in the old days. The http://www.become.com comparison shopping search site uses unique technology to crawl not just for products, but it is also used to identify reviews for those products, and provide comparison shopping search users with a great experience. You get to shop by all the standard sort features, plus switch between researching the products you’re interested in, and then comparing for things like price and so on. I expect them to stay innovative, and I look for good ongoing things to come from them. Thanks!
…disa