A new wave of websites is helping consumers pick their way through mid-summer sales, weekly offers and occasional discounts to find out where the cheapest products are hiding.
The recently launched Scan.com is the most innovative of these.
It lets you check internet prices while standing in the high street with nothing more than an ordinary mobile phone.
The barcode of a book or CD is sent to the site using mobile phone text messaging and it returns a text message detailing online offers for that product.
For the first time, on and offline shopping becomes immediately comparable.
As the technology used is ordinary SMS text messaging, you do not need a WAP-enabled phone.
Currently, only music and books are included but as e-commerce becomes more popular the site is likely to grow.
Evolution tested the service, checking prices for the Texas album Hush.
Scan.com sent a text message in around two minutes giving prices from BOL, well know books and CD site, (£7.99) and the less famous CD-tail (£15.99) and Frontear (£14.79).
The same product was priced £16.99 at HMV in Western Road, Brighton.
The text message also gave delivery times but not the cost of postage and packing.
Typing in bar codes through a mobile phone keypad is fiddly and long-winded but the results were comprehensive.
Scan.com finally sets online retailers head to head with high street names.
Price Offers is not so technologically impressive but works just as well.
The site lists special offers and bargains from more than 200 British chain stores.
Although it is not much use in the high street, you can search by product type or store to find out what is on offer.
Bargains ranged from £500 off a bed at Furniture World to a two-for-one baby food offer at Lloyds.
Fantastic for big purchases, it is hard to imagine running up a phone bill online to save a few pence on a loaf of bread in the Co-op.
Whatsonsale does the same thing rather better.
Its range of shops is listed in categories such as electrical goods and furnishings.
The best offers are listed on its home page.
Televisions from £79.98, chart CDs from £7.99 and a £480 return trip to Sydney were all included.
Shopping with the help of these websites is a lengthy process but they do help to take the random element out of bargain-hunting.
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