Section 29. Find Online Bargains with Froogle

Get to the main Froogle page by heading to www.froogle.com or http://froogle.google.com. Alternatively, click the Froogle link at the top of the main Google page.

Type your search term or terms as you would normally in Google. You come to a page with results that match your search query. At the top of the page are ads from stores that have the products for which you're searching. The main part of the page is taken up by results for products that match your query. The page lists descriptions of each of the products, as well as price information. If Froogle finds multiple sites that sell the same product, it shows you the price range for them.

You can fine-tune your search by specifying a price range for the product. On the left side of the results page, click the price range in which you're interested, or type a price range in the text boxes and click Go. The results page now shows products only in that price range.

Tip

When you're browsing or searching, look for Best Buy search results. When you find one and click it, you'll find reviews of the product from one or more shopping sitesincluding PriceGrabber.com, ResellerRatings.com, Shopping.com, and Shopzilla.com. In addition to the Best Buy designation, look at the end of each product's description on the results page to see whether there are product reviews.

If you prefer to see listings in a grid rather than in a list, click the Grid View link at the top of the results page. When you do that, you see more search results per page, but you can't see the details for each item.

When you find a product in which you're interested, click it, or click the Compare Prices button. You come to a page that has a more complete description of the item and a larger picture of the item (if it's available). The page also has listings of every site Froogle found that stocks the item and from which you can order. The results are sorted by price, with the lowest price first.

The page not only enables you to compare prices, it enables you to compare the sites that sell the item as well. Look in the Merchant Rating column in the results list. If the merchant's site has been reviewed by customers, you see a star rating for the site, as well as the total number of reviews. Click the link to read the actual reviews. Note that the reviews are not about the product, but about the store or merchant itself, as well as reports about the consumers' experiences with the sitereporting, for example, whether the site shipped the items on time, whether they returned items if they were defective, and so on.

To buy the item, click the link on the left side of the page for the merchant from which you want to buy the product. You are sent to that merchant's site, specifically to a page that has the site's description of the product you're interested in buying. At this point, you've left Froogle, and so you buy from the site itself, not from Froogle. Froogle has nothing to do with the transaction at this point.

If the searching and browsing doesn't help you find the item you want to buy, try doing an advanced Froogle search. From the main page of Froogle, click Advanced Froogle Search. In addition to the normal Google searching, you are able to search by price and product category, and specify whether you want the results to be displayed in a normal listing or in a grid.