1 SPORTS GOODS “Branded goods for less” is a popular website claim, but the 15-year-old company behind www.mandmsports.com has more reason to boast than most. It buys ends of lines, cancelled orders or overbought stock from big sports brands — Puma, Adidas, Nike and so on — and sells them at up to 80% off; so women’s Puma tennis shoes that cost £30 a year ago are a snip at £10. Although M&M has two factory outlets and a mail-order business, the website offers the best bargains: men’s Caterpillar boots cost £50 (RRP £85); women’s Nike Track T-shirts cost £10 (RRP £20); men’s Ben Sherman jeans are £30 (RRP £45); and the Hi Gear Canyon Vista Cycle Helmet is half-price at £10. You often have to scroll through countless pages to find your quarry, but the site is well illustrated and the discounts are irresist-ible. Delivery costs £4 (free for orders of more than £100).
2 MEDICATION Doctors do not always make it obvious that private prescriptions vary greatly in price, but they do. While the green-and-blue site of “the largest online pharmacy in the UK”, www.pharmacy2u.co.uk, is rather spartan, the prices should cheer you up. A packet of 12 Malarone malaria tablets costs £28.50 here, compared with £37 in Superdrug and £32-£38 at Boots. As for Viagra, you shouldn’t buy it anywhere else. At £47 for a pack of eight tablets, it is up to 50% cheaper here. You have to post your private prescriptions (the government does not yet facilitate e-fulfilment), but delivery is usually free. According to the site’s own comparisons with Boots, other bargains include: 24 Nurofen Plus tablets for £4.75 (5% cheaper), 30 Piriteze allergy tablets at £7.55 (12% cheaper) and Clarins Beauty Flash balm for £18 (18% cheaper). Delivery costs £2.50 on orders of less than £40, so add Gillette Mach3 Turbo cartridges with free razor (£10.49; RRP £12) or a Nicky Clarke hairdryer kit (£25; RRP £50).
3 LIGHT BULBS It is possible to find light bulbs more cheaply than at www.lightbulbs-direct.com, but they will almost certainly not be branded. According to Patrick Hudgell, who runs this family business in Buckinghamshire, this can mean hundreds of hours’ life instead of the thousands of hours offered by brands such as Philips or Osram. Like The Lightbulb Company (www.thelightbulb.co.uk), which is also good, Hudgell’s site uses the internet’s lower cost base to cut prices and expand the range. Bulbs now come in 3,000 baffling varieties and, as well as keen prices (up to 70% cheaper than retail, particularly on halogen bulbs: at Lightbulbs Direct, a box of 15 Sylvania 50W bulbs costs £34), part of the attraction of these sites is their expertise. “There is no problem we cannot solve,” boasts TLC. It is the easiest to search, but its rival is more helpful on fittings and low-energy bulbs. Irritatingly, both websites list prices without Vat. To find the best bargains, check both of them.
4 PRINTER CARTRIDGES While the scandal that is the exorbitant price of printer cartridges continues, you should make what savings you can and buy online. Because it is based in Guernsey, www.mx2.co.uk can make the most of a Vat loophole, and is cheap and reliable. The unfathomable eccentricities of HM Customs and Excise mean the Channel Islands are outside the EU for Vat, but within the EU for import duty. Translated into plain English, this means there is no duty to pay, and no Vat on goods costing less than £18. If you are buying several items that collectively come to more than £18, they are posted separately to avoid the tax; if a single item is worth more than this, MX2 includes Vat in the price. Postage is free, and savings are mega: an Epson T007401 black cartridge costs £13 (Rymans charges £22); the Epson T009401 Photo costs £15 (£23 at Rymans); and the Canon BCI-24 black is priced at £5.39 (£8 at Rymans).
5 POWER BILLS Manage a Powergen account online at www.powergen.co.uk and it will be the easiest £43 you make this year. According to uswitch.com, the biggest and longest- running price-comparison site for energy, an increasing number of companies are offering internet deals. Like Powergen, British Gas (www.house.co.uk) provides a financial carrot (up to £15 discount a year) for online billing, as well as non-power-related deals, such as fixed-fee conveyancing from £325 (plus Vat and disbursements) if you are moving. However, Uswitch claims that British Gas is the most expensive supplier for gas alone, and one of the most expensive for dual fuel. All electricity companies charge the most in the region they supplied before deregulation — for instance, London Energy in London, ScottishPower in Scotland and so on. If you are still with your incumbent electricity supplier and British Gas, you are paying 20% more than you need to. Get on to Uswitch, which will help make the switch, and for a couple of minutes’ work, you can save yourself up to £170 a year.
6 SPECTACLES After much digging, 21-year- old James Murray Wells dis-covered that spectacles cost an average of £7 or less to manufacture, yet the average spend on specs last year was £149. “Prices are inflated on the high street,” he says. “It’s profiteering.” From his parents’ living room, he began selling glasses priced from £15 at www.glassesdirect.co.uk; now, much to the relief of his mother, he has moved the rapidly expanding business into a converted barn. From the prescription your optician is obliged to give you, simply fill in the details online and pick your frames. Beware, however, as prices can creep up. The option for thin lenses, for example, adds £40. Still, the average spend is about £30, says Murray Wells, and designer frames, which will also be a third cheaper, are coming soon. The site makes the odd basic design error, such as having a big “Money Back Guarantee” graphic that is not interactive, but this is one of those sites that has the potential to revolutionise its market.
