The countdown has begun, its 10 weeks till Christmas and we all need to plan how we are going to do our shopping. This time last year online shopping had taken over the high street beating them on price and convenience, but now a new type of discount online shopping is becoming more prominent due to its bargain deals. Auction sites such as Mad Bid offer rock bottom prices, but are they really better then online stores.

The main attraction to online auction sites are the huge discounts, however there are other charges added to the price you bid, these include VAT, shipping costs and you need to buy bid packages varying from £20 – £250 depending on how many bids you want. In some cases you could pay more than you would on a normal retail site for smaller items, however bigger items such as T.V’s and cars can still be grabbed with a little bit of luck, at a huge discount.

One of the main drawbacks with auction sites is the time you have to put into snagging your bargain buys. The general set –up encourages you to bid more by re-setting the one minute timer every time someone bids unlike other online auctions where there is a set time. This can prove very time consuming unless you chose the option to automatically bid for an item for you but then you do run the risk of paying a lot more then you would have wanted.

For all you busy chiconomist’s online biding sites may not be the way to go due to the time you need to invest and for every good deal you get, you could of paid that little bit more and had all your Christmas shopping ordered quicker then it took you to get that one item. Even though these massive discounts make us chiconomist’s shaking with excitement you could get an equally good deal compared to the high street buy just shopping around online.

By Hannah Vickers