Cheaper and Better Holiday Shopping Online: BizRate.com

When I wander online to shop, I often bypass alluring but unfamiliar web stores because I don't know if I can trust them. BizRate.com helped quell such fears about shopping in cyberspace, and saved me money in the process.

Online retail companies routinely dangle commissions in front of search engines and fellow web sites for referring people to their online stores. In order to be an objective evaluator of web commerce, BizRate does not keep these kickbacks. They pass them along to you. If BizRate was offered 8% on the value of your purchase, they pass that referral commission along to you as an 8% rebate. Not all the stores listed on BizRate's site offer these commission-turned-rebates, but the rebates are only half of what's cool about this site. They also give consumer info on each company - like how often they deliver on time, or whether they have tracking services.

From their homepage, www.bizrate.com, you can search by category or look for a 'rapid report' on a company name. I was looking for women's clothes, and selected that as a category. This brought me to a page that listed a bunch of links to stores offering women's clothes. There was also an engine for me to select further subcategories like skirts, scarves, pants etc. to narrow my list. Next to each store was an overall rating compiled from other BizRate members' feedback, a note on the rebate that I'd get, and a percent on how often that company delivers on time. This was particularly helpful to me; I wanted to steer clear of companies with an 8% on time track record.

Next I nosed around the category search for books. I typed in a title, and BizRate spit out all the stores that carried what I was looking for. It also showed availability, the options for shipping, and then in the right corner listed the book's price, plus shipping, minus the rebate (if any) and then the total so I could compare the overall cost at every store in the list at a glance. Very cool! The price of one book I wanted varied from $15 to $25 (no Amazon was not the cheapest). Comparing shipping costs was one unexpected advantage to using BizRate. Again, it also gave the percent on how often each store delivers on time, crucial as we get closer to the holidays. The only problem I found was that the title had to be properly punctuated: There was no list for "The Artists Way," but "The Artist's Way" immediately grabbed what I was looking for.

To get the rebates, you have to log onto BizRate's site, then connect to the store you want; otherwise BizRate does not get credit for the referral, and you don't get a rebate. Also, you must use a BizRate email address in your purchase order so that BizRate is alerted that you've bought something and can credit your account. You are given a personal BizRate email when you sign up to be a member, which is a quick process from their homepage. Finally, you must pay online to get the rebate.

The main downside is that the rebate is not immediately credited to your purchase. Rebates accrue in your account, and once you earn $15 they cut you a check. BizRate makes their money by automatically subtracting a $3 processing fee. However, whether you earned $15, or $100, it is still the same flat fee of 3 bucks. Checks are sent out quarterly, and if you didn't earn $15 in that quarter, your total is carried over. An account is considered 'abandoned' if there are no transactions for 12 consecutive months, which is the only way to lose whatever you have accrued under $15. Also, if you return something, BizRate loses the referral commission, so you lose the rebate. To return a product, head back to the store, not to BizRate.

I was impressed with how quickly BizRate processed my searches, how many new sites I was introduced to, and the consumer information I got on each store. Doling out my credit card number to unfamiliar web places in cyberspace no longer feels like such a shot in dark. The rebates were the icing on the cake, not the main reason to use the site; in many categories less than half the companies offered rebates. Still, plenty did and I ended up getting 10% off of the gifts I bought. BizRate touts "up to 25% off your purchase," but a rebate this high is clearly the exception, not the norm.

Another subtle advantage comes with using your BizRate email address in your purchase. According to a recent US News and World Report article, BizRate has clout, so businesses are more likely to pay attention to you. (Indeed, an article in the Wall Street Journal this morning, 12/13/99, sited BizRate's evaluation of EToys.) From a company's point of view, screwing up on your order is no longer a matter of messing with one anonymous individual, but with a large organization whose ratings have impact.

Happy hunting!




Recommended: Yes