Comparison shopping
The highly competitive nature of software and hardware distribution means you don't have to pay list price if you're willing to do a little legwork — and I don't mean going from store to store looking for good deals, but legwork on the Web. There are many, many outlets for online software and hardware sales, and almost without exception they're less expensive than physical stores. There are some advantages to physical stores, such as the ability to ask questions of employees (although the knowledge level of computer store employees often leaves much to be desired), and the fact that if something ever goes wrong you can drop off the goods on the way home from work rather than having to box it up and ship it off. But other than that, you'll find most online stores to be as trustworthy and reputable as physical stores. Plus they all honor the same warranties as physical stores, and they often have larger inventories.

But there's an even better aspect to shopping online: many of the online stores feed their price lists to online databases, which in turn allow you to comparison shop for the best deals out there on just about any piece of soft- or hardware out there. My personal favorite is PriceWatch, which keeps its lists very up-to-date, and deals only with a few dozen of the most reputable online stores. I've personally saved hundreds and hundreds of dollars by tracking down deals through PriceWatch. If you'd like to combine your comparative review research with your shopping, you'll find comparitive prices and product reviews integrated into one site at NetBuyer. If you want the security of dealing with one of the oldest and largest online product distributors, pay a visit to Insight, though Insight is not necessarily the cheapest of the lot.

Online auctions

There's another excellent option that arises from the Web's collaborative potential: the online auction. These allow both vendors and individuals to put items (new or used) up for sale to the general public, often with pictures and technical descriptions. The public can then place bids and be notified via e-mail when they've been outbid, so they can return to the site and bid a few bucks higher. The highest bidder at the end of a preset time period gets the goods. Unbelievable savings can be found this way, but you do have to be more actively involved in the pursuit of your item than you would be otherwise. Check out OnSale, or AuctionWeb.

Buying used

If you're interested in saving money by buying used products, you have a few more variables to consider. If you're buying hardware, there's always the possibility of component failure with no guarantee. If you're buying software, you're almost certainly going to get last year's version, which may or may not be good thing, depending on the program in question. You're probably safer with used software purchases since there's really nothing that can go wrong, but I've had excellent luck purchasing used hardware from unknown individuals, and no bad incidents to date.

You want to be careful that the seller includes all documentation, applicable warranties, license transfers, etc. If you buy used software that doesn't include a transfer of license, keep in mind that you may be promoting piracy, since the owner could be keeping the license and a copy of the software on her own hard drive, while charging you for a set of disks and manuals but no license.

It's caveat emptor in this category, but you can protect yourself somewhat by always insisting on paying C.O.D. It also helps to exchange a few e-mails with the owner, asking general questions to try and get a sense for the personality behind the address, though this last point is, of course, completely subjective.

INTRO | FINDING DEALS | SOFTWARE | HARDWARE

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By day Scot Hacker (yes, that's his real name) is a Ziff Davis techno-weenie, but by night, he's a goateed motorcyle-riding poet. Or is it the other way around? Check out his funkadelic Web site, the Birdhouse Arts Collective.