-- Check the shipping costs and look for free shipping specials. Shipping costs vary widely between sites. According to WhenU.com, only one out of 20 retailers offers free standard shipping, but another 25% are offering free shipping on select or all purchases for the holiday season.

-- Inquire early-on about gift wrapping. In fact, WhenU.com found that only 7% of the top 400 retailers offer free gift wrapping -- and over half of these sites do not offer gift wrapping services at all.

-- Check return policies very carefully. While over three-quarters of shopping sites give consumers 30 days to return items, five out of six sites make consumers pay the return shipping costs.

-- Check out a site's privacy policy. 35% of sites may disclose users' personal information to third parties without explicit consent from users.

-- Make sure the site covers credit card risk. While a cardholder's liability for credit card fraud losses is legally limited to $50, over a third of the top 400 sites have a "safe shop guarantee" to cover even the $50 risk. Consumers should check to see if the site has this policy before they buy.

-- Start your shopping now! This may seem like the most logical advice, but still, many consumers wait to the last minute and therefore pay more for express shipping and miss out on the hot holiday items.

"Shopping on the Internet can be a great consumer experience. The best deals are there. However, the Internet is something like a flea market or a bazaar: Whether you get fleeced or find the deal of the century depends on whether you know what you are doing. A tool like WhenUShop makes you an expert shopper -- and acts as your independent, unbiased guide to the best hidden insights that can save you time and headaches," said Mr. Naider.

WhenUShop helps online shoppers by launching when a user visits any one of almost 400 top online retail sites, from Amazon.com to Wine.com. WhenUShop immediately gives a snapshot of the site's shipping costs, sales tax information, available coupons and rewards, rebate programs, gift services and special holiday deals so that shoppers can make a quick decision as to whether they wish to shop there. 

WhenUShop is not a web site, but rather a free software tool for online consumers that loads in less than one minute at WhenU.com. This online shopping assistant standardizes and streamlines the online shopping experience, providing vital data immediately to the shopper on unexpected and "hidden costs" and other hard-to-find customer service information. WhenUShop appears next to the Web browser as a slim, unobtrustive toolbar that appears automatically when users visit online shopping sites -- and disappears when the consumer goes to a non-retail site.

Importantly, WhenUShop is unaffiliated with any retailer or portal.

For more information, go to WhenU.com and install WhenUShop. 

SOURCE: WhenU.com

WEB SITE: http://WhenU.com/