Really Heavy Things

If you feel you win out on price while buying products through online retailer, the cost to ship it to your home might erase the price advantage. This is particularly true of heavy items, such as televisions.

Wisnefski says, “You’ll see sites that have a good price, but they’re trying to get it to the East Coast from Arizona and a lot of the time ... it might be better to go to Best Buy.”

Of course, that’s not the case every time. A number of sites offer free shipping if you meet a minimum purchase and some big retailers will sell an item on their website and ship it for free to your local store for pickup.

Wisnefski says, “Some of these smaller retailers entice you with price and then make their margins on shipping costs.” If you search on Google for a model of TV and a retailer you’ve never heard of selling at a low base price, take a really close look at what it’s charging for shipping. Probability the final price is going to be higher than most established online retailers.