Bargain Shopping - How to get a good price for your welding purchases

So, if you're looking around online for a better deal on that Mig you just can't live without, where do you go first? You can look for bargain MIG welders on eBay easy enough; just hit eBay.com and do a search for what you're looking for. Besides the used welders offered by individuals, there are tons of eBay stores with new equipment. I have not done business with any of these people, but they are rated by their user feedback, and that's typically-- but not always -- a good indicator. I'd suggest that you use a credit card, not a debti card, for these purchases, especially with any online business. Your credit card company can easily help you dispute the charge if what you got wasn't what you were promised.

One place that I like a lot is Froogle, a service from Google. What's wicked cool about Froogle is this: you can enter a search term in Google, see information on it from the Google site, and then click the Froogle link to see products offered. For instance...

I entered welders into Froogle. Got a bunch of different results. However, I was really looking for a Hobart 500425 Tigmate AC/DC Tig Welder Kit. The results? This page, with a ton of different stores offering the weider online and all their prices. See it here. I got 3 pages of results and prices ranging from $1560.75 to $2,500. Quite a difference, and Froogle, like a lot of shopping engines, makes it easy to get price comparisons. Some of the older ones made stores pay to get in, so they only really are ads for a limited number of stores. Froogle's free, so everything's in it.

I've used it for everything major I've purchased for a while now, especially if I'm buying stuff over the web. Works like a charm.