15 Shopping Websites and Apps to Save You Lots of Cash

Amazon is the leading brand that comes to mind when you think about shopping online. It’s Amazon Prime subscription service is used by more than 64% of our households.

But, there are other niche companies that you can use to shop if you want to find bargains.

Here, we compiled 15 shopping websites and apps that you can use to save a lot of money.

Harry’s

For years, Gillette has dominated the shaving industry with their shaving blades that retail for more than $20.

But are these products worth all this money? Nope.

This is where Harry’s comes in. The company was started to offer customers cheap and high-quality shaving products.

By eliminating the middlemen, retailers, wholesalers and other distributors, Harry’s can sell quality blades for as little as $3 per month

The good thing is, you don’t need to commit to a long contract. You can order your blades and cancel the subscription.

You can learn more about Harry’s here.
Another shaving alternative is Dollar Shave Club.

Hotel Tonight

Hotels have a lot of rooms, and in many times, the hotels don’t have enough reservations. This means that for the night, the hotel will not make any money for the empty room.

Hotel Tonight is an android and iOS app that helps hotels solve this problem. Hotels give the company their vacant rooms which customers can buy.

This creates a win-win situation for the customer, the hotel, and for Hotel Tonight. The customer saves money, the hotel gets revenue which could have been lost, and Hotel Tonight makes a commission.

You can download the Android app here and the iOS app here.
Alternatively, you can compare hotel prices in one click using Trivago or use Airbnb to make more savings.

Wish

Whenever you shop at Walmart, Target, or Sears, the price you pay involves margins of many companies including the manufacturer, the shipping company, distributors, wholesalers, and the retailers. For example, when you pay $50 for a shirt, chances are that the real worth of the shirt is less than $10.
Wish is an $8.5 billion company that solves this problem by connecting you with the manufacturers. It is similar to Alibaba, with the difference being that you don’t need to buy in bulk.

By shopping directly at Wish, you pay for the manufacturer and the shipping company. Thus, you are able to save a lot of money. Equally, Wish can sell products at even a 92% discount.

You can download the Wish apps here and here or visit the website here.

Rent the Runway

Fashion is expensive.

Don’t believe it? Well, the dress below sells for $37,781.

If you are attending a gala or a top-level event, you don’t need to spend all this money on a dress. Especially, a dress that you will never put on again.

Rent the Runway helps you by providing designer dresses and bags for a small fee. For example, instead of buying this dress for $5,300, you can just rent it out for four days for $800.

What’s more? For $89 a month, you can rent up to four pieces of high-end designer dresses.

Visit Rent the Runway website here.

Brandless

This shaving gel retails for $62.

But is it worth that much? I doubt that. Part of the reason the gel costs that much is because of the brand behind it; Remington.
Brandless solves this problem by giving buyers an opportunity to buy high-quality unbranded products for as little as $3.

In the website, you can buy different varieties of personal care products, food, home and office, and beauty products for just $3.

The company recently raised more than $50 million
Visit the website here.

Jet

Jet’s concept to save you money is simple. By buying more products, the company saves in shipping costs. These savings are then transferred to you.

Jet, which was bought by Walmart for $3 billion last year, sells thousands of products and gives free shipping on all orders above $35. The more you shop, the more prices drop.

Upwork

Do you want an article written? Or a website designed? Or a logo? Or an application developed?

The truth is, you don’t need to hire a company to do all this. These companies will likely charge you thousands of dollars to develop a website or logo.

To save money and get a quality product developed, I recommend Upwork.

Upwork allows you to post a project online and then receive applications from people from around the world.

The beauty of this is that you can get a developer from India or other countries to build you an app for less than $1,000. And, the quality will be just the same.

Quick tips.

To get a good freelancer in Upwork, I recommend that you take your time to interview the applicants, possibly have a video conversation with them, look at their portfolio and perhaps, contact some of their past clients, and closely monitor the work.
Other companies you can explore are Fiverr, Guru, People Per Hour, and Freelancer.

You can learn more about Upwork here.

eBay

Yes, you can use the good old eBay to get huge discounts.
eBay is a marketplace which means that the pricing is controlled by the sellers. Often, sellers will stay for a long time with inventory and decide to sell them at a discount.

For example, as people move to the new iPhone X, sellers are struggling to sell their inventory of old generations of iPhones. If you are not interested in buying the new brand, you can buy a new iPhone for a significant discount. You can see the exciting offers here.

You can also visit this page to see the company’s daily deals which sell at a significant discount.

You can visit eBay’s website here or download its apps here and here.

Other websites you can try are Amazon and Walmart.

Groupon

Yes. Groupon still exists.

Groupon was the premier daily deals website. Today, Groupon is the largest e-commerce platform focused on local discounts.

In the website, you can find local deals and coupons on getaways, restaurants, and general products.

You can visit Groupon’s website here or download its apps here and here.

Swap

Any parent will tell you that kids grow so fast. The clothes the baby wears in the first week might not fit him in the next following week or two.

What do you do with all these used (yet new) clothes?

Swap started as a website to help you sell your used baby clothes to new parents. A few years later, the company expanded to allow grownups and teens to sell their used clothes.

So far, the website has raised more than $32 million with a valuation of more than $100 million.

Give it a try if you want to buy used quality clothes at a discount.
You can visit the website here.

LetGo

At times, you don’t need to buy brand new stuff. For example, you don’t need to buy this brand new lawn mower for $320.
Perhaps, your neighbor is moving and has decided to sell his stuff including a lawn mower.

LetGo is a web and mobile application that allows people to buy and sell used products. To date, the company has raised almost $500 million giving it a valuation of more than $2 billion.

Before you buy something on Amazon, I recommend that you first explore Letgo and see whether anyone close is selling a similar thing.

Hotpads

If you need to rent an apartment, you know how tough the process is. In fact, most Americans hate interacting with housing agents.

Hotpads solves this situation by creating a platform where anyone can post an apartment and get clients.

The website allows clients to search for their ideal apartment based on many factors like location, amenities, and number of rooms.

In many cases, you will get in touch with the owner of the apartment which means you won’t pay money to agents or brokers.

Other alternative products are Zillow, Naked Apartments, and Realtors.

You can read more about this product here.

Magzter

If you are a fan of reading magazines, then you should give Magzter a try. The concept behind Magzter is simple. It is the Netflix of magazines.

With a single $10 monthly subscription, you get access to more than 4000 magazines including titles like Allure, PC Magazine, and Men’s Health.

By using Magzter, you can save hundreds of dollars every month.
You can find more about Magzter here.

Alternatively, you can try Issuu, where people upload magazines, and you can read them for free.

Moviepass

Frankly, for consumers, I think Moviepass has the best deal. Moviepass is simply the Netflix of movie theaters.

Watching a movie in a theater costs more than $10. On the other hand, Moviepass lets users pay a $10 monthly fee which allows them to watch movies in any theater per month.

Can a deal get any better?

If this idea works for the long term, I think it will be a hit. It will also get Americans watching movies again.

Learn more here.

Spotify and Netflix

I had to bundle these together because of their similarity. A Spotify subscription gives you access to millions of songs while a Netflix subscription gives you access to thousands of movie titles.
These applications save you a lot of money when you use them well. For example, buying a movie DVD goes for more than $20. With Netflix, a $10 subscription gives you access to all the movies. The same is true for Spotify where one music album costs more than $10.

Remember to always unsubscribe when you believe you won’t watch or listen to music in a given month.

Other platforms you can try are Hulu, Amazon Prime, WWE and Apple Music.

Final Thoughts

Technology has revolutionized how things get done. For example, whoever thought that a single $10 subscription would let you access all theaters per month? What about a $10 subscription giving you access to thousands of movies on Netflix?

Before you do any shopping, I recommend that you take time to research. The chances are that you will find a better or similar product at a lower cost. I also recommend that you save your savings for the long term.

For example, if you save just $20 per week, in one year, you will have $1040.