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Comparisons take the drudgery out of on-line shopping

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Setting up an on-line business is now so easy overseas that, however obscure your shopping needs, there probably will be dozens of on-line retailers selling products to meet them.

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Most of these sites look similar, but thanks to comparison-shopping sites, you now can check out prices without visiting more than one site.

I have always considered shopping for clothes on-line a risky endeavour. After all, in Hong Kong clothes are always on sale and you can try before you buy. But if you cannot find the gear you want in Causeway Bay, a general shopping site such as the oddly named mySimon (www.

mysimon.com) might help.

It and other megamalls such as CompareNet (www.comparenet.com) and Shopping.com (www.shopping.com) let you compare prices for anything from wine to waterskis, but I think the best way to search is to go to specialists.
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The most popular items people buy on-line are computers, and there probably are more on-line computer stores than any other. Buy.com (www.buy.com) is an obvious place to start as it also hosts buycomp.com and buysoft.com Pricetrac (www.pricetrac.com) is another alternative, though the interface is a little slow. Browsing the site or searching by vague keywords can be time-consuming, so the easiest way to use Pricetrac is to know the model number you want. Pricetrac e-mails you when a product hits your price.
The fastest computer comparisons I have found were at Price Watch (www.pricewatch.com) where vendors pay to have products listed, so you may not always get the Net's best deal.
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