Cyber Monday: 3 nonconformist tips

(MoneyWatch) We're deep into the holiday shopping season, when retailers, manufacturers and advertising outlets want consumers to follow the set path of moving from Black Friday to Cyber Monday, crazily looking for bargains and spending money. At least in e-commerce, you don't face violence as people fight over goods.

But even if you're not in physical danger, following the crowd still means planning your life around being in lines, whether literal or metaphorical. If you want to try something a little different, here are some tactics you can try.

1. Skip the impulse buying

Shopping on Cyber Monday is like going to the grocery store. If you don't know what you're going to get, you'll end up buying things on impulse. At the grocery store, you're typically limited by the size of a shopping cart and the amount of time you're willing to spend walking down aisles.

Not so in online stores. There is nothing to lift and no reason to leave your seat. That can make for an unexpectedly expensive browsing session. Instead of looking around to see what is available, work with a list. You may have a specific set of presents you need to buy for others, or maybe something for home or work. Stick to it and check sites like DealNews.com to see who will have what you need.

2. Go to a store

Yes, yes, Cyber Monday is supposed to be for online shopping. However, why do what you're supposed to do? Stores still want business and will be running sales. There are many retail locations that match prices. Print out a list of sale prices from sites and bring it along. You might be able to pick up what you want without sitting at a computer, waiting for a sale on a particular item to start.

3. Skip the hourly sales countdowns

Dismissing those hour-by-hour revelations of product specials must be the consumer equivalent of blasphemy. Never mind -- do it anyway. Retailers constructed this mechanism to drive up the need to win a bargain, using much the same psychology that can send prices unreasonably upward in auctions.

Flickr user Kevin Marks

[polyproc47]

I make a list of items I'm interested in and the online stores I wish to visit. Then I go to Discover.com to see what additional rebates I might receive by accessing the online store through Discover. An example is Chico's. If I access Chicos.com through Discover, I receive 10% back in rebate points on my Discover card. Because I belong to the Chico's frequent buyer club, I also get 5% off and free shipping when I sign into my Chico's account. Whenever possible, I access the online store through discover.com. There are over 150 stores available w/ different levels of rebate points. I can also get discounted gift cards for other stores through the Discover.com website and then use the gift cards to make purchases at the online store site. And now Amazon.com allows me to use my Discover rebate points on its site. Since I buy our son's college textbooks on Amazon.com, I save by paying for the textbooks using Discover points. Some other credit cards offer the same options. Do your research as to which credit card gives you the most cash back.

[needtoknow5-2009]

A good non-conformist tip might be to use just one website to find all the best Cyber Monday deals. We have done all of our shopping online the past 5 years and used a website called Pilewire.com for the past three. They only work with established retailers an etailers and look for the best bargains on highly-rated products, like netbooks, tablets and eBook readers and put everything on one website. Most things ship for free. I love it.

[kimgerly100]

A true non-conformist would skip shopping altogether. Consumerism will be the bane of humans, and other species existence.

[JasonHerman]

Another great tip: use a price comparison site like http://idealchooser.com before buying anything. You will often find much better prices by following this advice.