When it comes to shopping online it seems most sites are targetted towards Americans, but there are many great places to go to shop online for Canadians if you know where to look. This article will show you the best sites to go to buy anything online for Canadians. From books to travel I will try to cover all the major areas of where to go to find the best online deals for Canada:

Books

Amazon.ca – In most cases I find Amazon has the best prices when it comes to buying books online. Though Chapters/Indigo is very close I find the rates on Amazon slightly better. They also have a section where people sell used books where I have managed to pick up some great deals (ie. book for under $1 and a small shipping cost around $5). Their orders typically ship super fast and are usually there in a couple days!

Ebay.ca – When I am comparing with Amazon I will always take a look on Ebay. Sometimes people sell brand new books for really cheap because they received them as a gift and just want to get rid of them so they have to sell lower than online retailer prices or sell as an online auction with no reserve price.

Clothes

Ebay.ca -Ebay is one of the best places to get deals on clothes or find clothes that are hard to get. The best strategy is to find what you are looking for offline then search Ebay to see if you can get a better deal. With designer names be weary for counterfeits as there are plenty of these to be found on ebay but for certain items you can get some amazing prices!

RedFlagDeals.ca – The apparel section of the Red Flag Deals forum is a great place to find out which brands and retailers are having sales, warehouse sales both online and offline. If you want to find something specific the best thing to do is become a member so that you can use the search feature of the forum to find exactly what you are looking for.

Computers & Electronics

FutureShop.ca / BestBuy.ca – These 2 are the biggest sites for electronics in Canada and where I look first when buying electronics online. Try to avoid buying anything at regular price as they rotate their sales every month or so which means what you are looking for will probably go on sale at some point in the near future if it is not already. Their biggest sale of the year is Boxing Day where you can find some great deals if you can put up with all the technical problems they experience due to a ridiculous increase of load from all the website traffic. Also most things ship free which is a bonus!

Dell.ca – Dell offers some of the best deals for computers online though you have to keep checking back regularily as the deals change all the time.

Ebay.ca – Ebay is a great place for small electronic things such as cables and accessories. Avoid the major retailers for these things as they will price gouge you like crazy!

Amazon.ca – One thing many people don’t notice is Amazon also sells household appliances. I find I usually get the best deals on appliances through them.

RedFlagDeals.ca – Computer and electronic deals are the most common types of deals posted on Red Flag Deals. Before buying any of these kind of items I always do a quick search through their “Hot Deals” forums to see what deals are out there.

Local Deals / Group Buys

Deal Radar – Since the rise of companies such as Groupon one of the biggest crazes with online shopping lately is group buys. Since there are so many group buying sites out there I suggest using a deal aggregator such as Deal Radar to filter through all the results. If you click the link here it will take you to their page for deals in Toronto, but if you are in another city you can change the city with the drop down at the top of the page. They make it to see all the group deals in your city for that day.

Online Shopping Research / Everything Else

RedFlagDeals.ca -Now owned by Yellow Pages, Red Flag Deals is an online community where consumers come together to discuss the best deals. The forums are very active which means if there is a good deal out there, chances are someone will post it on this site! There are also other sections of the forum where you can learn about saving money on everything.

PriceNetwork.ca – Similar to Red Flag Deals without the massive traffic levels, this is a good site to check in case someone at RFD missed a deal. Also there are fewer deals posted here making it easier to navigate through all the deals. A good place to go for another perspective.

ShesSoSavvy.com – This site is great for finding what specials restaurants in your area (in Toronto) are offering on a particular night. Definitely worth checking out before you head out for a drink or a bite on the town!

Travel

TripCentral.ca – This is my favourite site to go to for doing research on package vacations. If you go to the site and click on their Vacation Pricing Grid you can quickly find a vacation based on hotel class, price, dates, and a few other options. Their grid is very easy to navigate and see when the lowest prices are for particular destinations. Another one of my favourite things about Trip Central is when you look at a certain hotel it will list direct phone numbers for their agents that have been to the resort. I have used this feature in the past and found the agents gave honest opinions of the resort to ensure it is the right place for your trip. Another thing worth mentioning is SellOffVacations occasionally has slightly better prices prices than Trip Central so I will sometimes book through them if it is worth it so do a comparison when you find a package you like.

Expedia.ca – Expedia is great because it is a one stop shopping travel site. I have used them for booking many hotels and flights in the past and find their interface very easy to use to find what you are looking for. Their pricing is also very competitive and I typically find great deals through them.

Priceline / Hotwire – If you want to book a hotel and price is the ultimate factor then I use the “bidding for travel” features of these sites. For more information on how bidding for travel works, check BetterBidding.com. One thing I must note is I have found from my experience that when you bid on your room through these sites you typically get a worse room (ie. bad view, far from elevators, etc.) in the hotel than you would if you were a full paying customer. Also, these sites operate in US dollars though with the dollar how it is today this can be a positive.

Kayak.com – This is the best site to use to find the best flight deals. Their system shows the largest selection of routes which help you find the best prices for putting together your flight.

* NOTE: With travel I tend to do a lot more research as the cost is quite high. I will typically compare rates on the hotel and airlines own sites as well as use sites that are more specific to the region. I will go into much further detail on this topic in a later article.