Forget the Fingers - Let The PC Do The Walking!

I often think that Computers are at their best when they are performing the tasks with which the rest of us just can't be bothered. For example, I've long since wanted to buy myself a digital camera - a Canon lxus 500 to be precise. I know that there are a plethora of on-line retailers that sell digital cameras. I also know that if I had the time, patience and inclination I could work my way through most of them and probably save myself a few quid - but I won't. You see there are 101 things I need to do first and besides......isn't there a good film on TV tonight?

The truth is, like most people I would maybe look at two or three on-line retailers, pick the what I thought was the best and then hope I hadn't paid too much over the odds for my camera.

Never mind. Help is at hand. It's time that PC you're staring at began to earn its keep!

You see while the task of searching hundreds of on-line retailer sites and comparing their prices may well be mind-numbingly boring to us mortals it's a task that is ideally suited to a computer. So much so that some people have built successful companies around the whole idea. One such company is Kelcoo.

Kelcoo claims to hold price information on some 2 million products. These include holidays, digital cameras, mobile phones, any sort of electrical items and even new cars! They can show you the price differences between retailers in seconds.

Back to my camera for a moment.

Kelcoo listed 29 retailers all willing to sell me my Canon lxus500 but here's the crunch. The prices ranged from £271at 7dayshop.com to £389.95 at PRCDirect.co.uk - a difference of £118.95 (You might want to read that sentence again!)

Now I don't know about you but I can think of a whole lot of things that I could spend that £118 on!

I guess the lesson here is an old one - don't accept the first price you see. Shop around has always been good advice. Now that you have a computer with Internet access the phrase 'shop around' can be used on a rather larger scale.

Whatever you're thinking of buying, be it a camera like me or a wide screen TV or new cooker - IO can only suggest that it might be worth running it passed Kelcoo first. If my own experience is anything to go by then the savings can be quite startling.

Try it out - Click on any of the links below to take you to the relevant Kelcoo page and just have a nose around - it doesn't cost anything to look, as they say. It's quite enlightening and makes you appreciate just how useful that PC can be!