Unless there is something you need right away like a cooking ingerdiant, it is usually far cheaper to shop online.  Why would an online store be cheaper? 

1. Wherehouse vs. Storefront
When you go shopping for a computer at Best Buy, you have to go to a physical storefront that costs thousands of dollars a month to rent, or was purchased for millions of dollars.    The company also has to have employees in the store at all times to sell their items.  Those costs aren’t absorbed by the company.  They pass it on to the consumers in the form of higher prices.
On the internet the storefront is a webpage, and all the products are held in a warehouse where space can be better utilized and usually where land prices are much cheaper.   There are also no employees to pay to deal with customers, just to process shipping.  So at Best Buy, even if you buy nothing you’ve used their employee’s time, but on the web if you don’t buy, it costs the company nothing.

More Competition
How many stores are there in your community that sell light bulbs?  1? 2? 3!!?  Google “Buy light bulbs” with quotes, and you get 16,500 sites!  Its a simple concept of economics, more competition = lower prices.  The insane amounts of competition that is only a click away drives prices online as low as they can possibly go. 

The Downsides
These cheap prices come at a cost.  The first and most obvious problem is that you have to wait for the item to be shipped.   You can eleviate this pain by being conscious of where your items are coming from.  For example, I just bought a CD from a private vendor on Amazon.com.  The cheapest seller was from New Jersey, but by paying 37 cents more I could choose a seller in my state on the West coast, will arrive much sooner. 
Another downside is that you can’t try anything before you buy it.  This is essential for things like shoes.  You probably want to try on shoes to make sure they’re comfortable before you buy them.  So use your common sense here.

Part of being a successful online shopper is waiting for deals.  With so many vendors, it is inevitable that the product you want will soon be on sale.  This is where Deal of the Day sites come in handy.  There are two main sites you should have book marked and visit every day, Woot.com, and DODTracker.com  These sites will be your guide in finding some of the best deals online.

WOOT
Woot.com is the original deal of the day site.  It is important to recognize the original vs the imitators.  Beyond that, Woot has been very successful not only because they have some of the hottest deals you will ever find, but they always have hilarious descriptions about their products.  You can also discuss the deals in their forums.  Woot has recently ventured out beyond their one deal of the day into Shirt.Woot, which offers one shirt everyday for a measly $10!  If you want to get in on this deal you’ll have to get up pretty early in the morning, because it frequently sells out within an hour.

DOD  Tracker
This site is kind of a database of all every deal of the day sites on the internet.  It tracks 153 deal of the day sites, which is a lot more than probably anyone even cares to look at.  But if you can find a store that frequently sells products you’re interested in you can score some great deals, if you know what you want and have a quick mouse.  This is definately a site you should bookmark and visit frequently. DODTracker

Ringtones seem to be the hottest way to express your personality to total strangers.  There are people literally making millions of dollars a month selling ringtones.  The trend has fallen off slightly, but the popularity and profitability of ringtones are sure to keep them in the public eye for many years to come.  That being said, how can you get the best deals on your ringtones?

Buy
If you’re on top of every trend and need to express your individuality, ringtones can be purchased from companies like Jamster.com
. Its important to buy ringtones from well known companies like Jamster, who I’m sure you have all seen commercials for on MTV. Some companies will sign you up for a monthly contract for $9.99, which ads up to $120! If you want to buy a sweet ringtone, make sure you read the fine print, and don’t get charged month after month for one ringtone.

Make your Own
There are still a lot of phones out there, like the Samsung t629, which accept transflash cards.  Transflash are just standard SD memory sticks that are SUPER tiny and fit into your phone.  The transflash cards are then put in to a hollow SD card that you can put right into your computer and load songs onto.  These can be purchased for around $20 for a 2GB card.  If you buy one of these cards you’ll never have to buy a ringtone!

Use the Stock Ringtones
You can always just use the stock ringtones that come on your phone.  These aren’t popular, but you can guarantee that you’ll always hear your phone as 8-bits of sound destroy the worlds most famous pieces of classical music.

The most common question people ask when they begin online shopping is whether or not it’s safe.

Online shopping has taken off in the past decade beyond what many people ever thought possible.  The graph shows online spending as calculated by the BBC. So can you really trust your most personal information with private vendors? Overwhelmingly yes.

Shopping on Websites
Many websites are trustworthy to submit your credit card information of the simple fact that they never actually see your personal info.  Authorize.net is a company that is many sites use as a payment gateway.   So for example, if you’re buying a CD from CDWorld.com,  Even though you’re on CDWorld.com/checkout, all of your information is sent securely to  Authorize.net. 

Private Vendors
Buying from sites that facilitate private selling like eBay or Craigslist is a trickier matter.  That will have to be explored in many more posts.  First, lets deal with eBay.  I personally try and avoid eBay when at all possible.  That said, there are literally millions of people that use it every day without any problems.  The key to using eBay without any problems is to always pay through paypal.  Paypal has buyer protection, so you can open a dispute if someone tries to rip you off. 
On Craigslist, there is only one thing you ever need to know.  All deals should be in person and cash only.  Anyone that tries to send payment through Western Union is a scam.  Anyone that wants you to ship the item is trying to scam you.  Plan and simple. 

So to sum up everything that has been said, YES, shopping online is safe.  There are many safeguards in place to prevent scammers from stealing your hard earned money.  Even if all the best efforts to avoid being scammed fail, you can always call your credit card company and cancel the card or dispute the charges.

Amazon.com is an amazing marketplace for people to buy and sell goods.  Amazon was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, who has since become obscenely rich.  Amazon does 14.8 billion in business every year, and for good reason.  Amazon has been a hotbed for deals for years, but not everyone realizes what great deals are available at this site.  What Amazon does very well is bring together a lot of sellers into one community.  When you buy an item, you will frequently see an item being sold through a third party, so Amazon doesn’t even have the item in stock, but they can fill the need by allowing other campanies to plug the gaps in their product line.  Beyond that, there is also the ability to sell your used products through their site.  Amazon will take a 5.8% commission.

Be very careful when you read FREE in an online advertising post.  The word ‘free’ has recently come under some heavy fire as to whether it is misleading in the context if ringtones.  Online advertising company Azoogle just paid a 1 million dollar fine in the state of Florida over the use of the word free in their advertising of ringtone offers.  Basically, they advertised ringtones as free, when in fact the user had to pay a fee to recieve anything free. (Which obviously isn’t free.)  Be very careful about going for free offers.

There are a lot of online scams that seem very legitimate.  BestPriceCameras.com and all their mirror companies including 1WayFoto, ExpressCameras, CameraAddict.com, etc.  Here’s the basic way these schmucks scam honest people out of their hard earned money.

Step 1. - They offer a camera that is rediculously underpriced
Step 2. - They aggressively upsell you on accessories that are 900% above their actual price.   Or they tell you a camera doesn’t come with a lens, even if its a video camera with an attached lens.  (Crooks don’t have PhDs.)
Step 3a. - You refuse to buy their rediculously overpriced extras and suddenly the camera you want is out of stock.
Stes 3b. - You buy their camera, and when you recieve it its missing some stuff you bought, or its a grey market camera that is garbage.
Step 4. - You try and return it, and they are very nasty to you.  They then tell you there is a 15% re-stocking fee.  So if you bought a $2,000 video camera, you’re out $300.

To hear testinonials from people that got dupped by these crooks check out ResellerRatings.com.

The best way to avoid this scam is to use common sense.  If a vendor is selling a camera for 1/2 what any other reputable vendor is selling it for, its an obvious scam.  Another good indicator, and I hate to generalize like this, but the vast majority of these scams originate from Brooklyn, New York.  So if a company looks shady and is fron Brooklyn. AVOID IT!!!