1. Walmart
   • Gizmodo
   • Engadget
2. Office Max
   • CrunchGear
   • Gizmodo
3. Costco
   • CrunchGear
4. Target
   • CrunchGear
   • Gizmodo
5. Best Buy
   • CrunchGear
   • Gizmodo
6. Circuit City
   • CrunchGear
   • Gizmodo
   • Engadget
7. Sam’s Club
   • CrunchGear
   • Gizmodo
8. Radio Shack
   • Gizmodo
9. Dell
   • Gizmodo
   • Engadget
10. Sears
    • CrunchGear
    • Engadget
    • Gizmodo

• BB Storm better than iPhone? – CrunchGear
• Make a Mac Pro Ultra Mini – CrunchGear
• Circuit City to close another 150 stores? – Gizmodo
• And finally to be festive, a 4.5 million LED Winter Light Show – Gizmodo

AppleInsider is all over the rumors that Apple is contemplating huge discounts for the upcoming Black Friday shopping spree.  There have already been confirmed price cuts overseas, as the price of the 8GB iPhone 3G has dropped from 149 Euros down to only 99.

Apple has a history of running Black Friday sales, as do many of the biggest computer manufacturers like Dell & HPCompaq, both of which have leaked some type of Black Friday special already (personally, I rely on sites like GottaDeal.com to find Black Friday specials, though I refuse to stand in line for six hour in New England cold just to save a couple bucks on gifts).  In the past, they’ve offered deals like $100 off select G5 desktop systems, or $101 off MacBooks.

This year, with the state of the US economy and with the huge discounts being offered by other manufacturers and retailers like WalMart & Best Buy, speculation is running rampant that Apple might offer some type of discount that falls in line with others.  Could that mean a 30 or 40% off special on the last generation of MacBooks?  Maybe a combined deal with AT&T on iPhones and 1 or 2-year service contracts?

See, aren’t rumors fun?  Anything’s possible, until it’s actually announced.

But over the past 2 days, Woot has had what it’s known as a Woot-Off. Woot-Offs occur about every other month it seems, but it can happen anyday. During a Woot-Off, they sell one item after another, each until the set amount they plan to sell is sold. That’s it! You can buy up to 3 of each Woot like on normal days. You can tell a Woot-Off is occurring due to the Sirens that are under current product’s image, as well as the bar between them depicting the total left in stock before the next item.

Some items sell REALLY fast, and some sell REALLY slow. You never know how many Roombas you’ll see in a given Woot-Off, but keeping yourself from buying one is always tough. The real gem though, is getting that BOC I won’t give away all the secrets, but to be honest, startup online-shoppers that read Dave‘s post last week about 10 Random Things to know about Online Shopping should REALLY consider taking a look at woot. Here’s why:

1.Woot.com is a highly repretable site that is very secure and very popular.

2. It’s much like shopping at a discount store. You’ll see lots of great prices on Refurbished (Respiffed) electronics.

3. The prices are usually decent for 1 woot, good for 2 woots, or great if you get the max 3 of the day’s woot.

4. Shipping is always 5 bucks! Only shirt.woot allows you to pay for overnight shipping, and that is $5 too. Shirts at shirt.woot are free to ship.

5. It’s fun to check each day’s woots in the morning. My dad checks it daily, and he found out about it on his own. ::So Proud::

6. The chance of a Woot-Off always mean good times. You can really get some fantastic deals if you pay attention, or see some very very odd items.

So the Woot-Off is over, but there will be another, and until then, go check out Woot’s offers. If you live in a state that allows Alcohol shipments, check out wine.woot, and if you like one-of-a-kind T-shirts (Designed by the Woot Community) check out shirt.woot. If you’re new to shopping online, there’s nothing better to get you familiar with the process then getting you first Woot!

It’s fun to see what “today’s item is.” There’s nothing like starting off work with an online purchase

If it looks too good… This is the first rule when buying anything, so online shopping is no different.  Trust me – nobody online is looking to give away a priceless antique for the low, low price of $19.99.  And no matter what somebody tells you, to borrow an old routine from Jerry Seinfeld, “Limited Edition” usually means “Limited to the number we can sell”.

Better safe than sorry. In a world increasingly vulnerable to cyber attack, you need to make very certain that you are buying from secure websites.  Although there is no such thing as impenetrable security, don’t go buying from some unknown website that will save you ten bucks.  Chances are they aren’t investing in any type of security, meaning you may have just handed your credit card number to thousands of hackers worldwide.

Paper or Plastic? Never, ever pay by cashier’s check, money order, or cash.  If those are the only methods someone accepts, they’re trying to fleece you.  You have no way of recouping your money if your item is never shipped.  Personal checks aren’t the best idea either; although you can put a stop payment on any check, you have just sent out your personal bank account and routing number along with your home address to a merchant.  I don’t know about the unscrupulous people in this world, but those three things are enough information for me to get a line of credit with any number of major stores or websites.  Credit cards will at least let you cancel payments or dispute charges if there is a problem (trust me – I know).  Another option is a pre-paid credit card.  This is probably the safest way to purchase things online – buy a pre-paid card using cash or a check, then use that card to purchase your item online.  You still get the coverage of a major credit card, without putting any of your personal information at risk.

Do your research. A lot of websites offer products that look exactly like the one you saw in the store display or the flyer that came in the mail.  But many times, they’re not.  Discount websites are notorious for selling last year’s model that looks just like this year’s.  Sure, it’s cheaper than buying the newest toy from Best Buy, but is it actually what you wanted?

Know the return policies. Some online retailers will charge restocking fees for returning items, on top of the shipping fees that you often have to pay to send things back.  So before you decide you don’t really want or need that $35 gadget, keep in mind it’s probably going to cost you $30 to send it back and pay the fees.

Double check your own information. In the past ten years, I’ve moved to and from seven different addresses between college and the years after.  Although I’ve always kept my billing address listed at my family’s home, my shipping address constantly changes.  So sometimes I’ll make a purchase and forget to check which address it’s being chipped to.  Case in point – my television died last week and I ordered the part to fix it.  Problem is, I forgot to check which shipping address I had registered on the site, so it got shipped to my last address… in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  I live about forty minutes south of Boston, Massachusetts – nearly 600 miles from Pittsburgh.  Kind of tough for me to drive to my last apartment and pick up my package.

Don’t lose your receipts. This would seem like a no brainer, but since many websites simply e-mail a receipt to you after purchase, many people will dump the message from their Inbox.  Sometimes it will even be blocked or go to a Junk folder.  This is important information that you’ll need for warranty claims, returns and rebates, so make very sure you keep either a copy of the e-mail on a safe hard drive, or even print it out and keep a hard copy around.

Shop around. While major retailers often do have the best prices and offer the most piece of mind for security, you can sometimes find better deals from some of the smaller sites out there.  You can also use sites like Gottadeal.com or Retailmenot.com to try and find unadvertised coupons for the major stores and websites.  Just make sure you’re buying from truly a secure website, and not just some guy named Corey sitting in his garage with a web server and a credit card processor.

Clean up after yourself. If you do a lot of online shopping, it is even more important for you to clean up your hard drive after purchases.  Running a program like CCleaner (detailed here on TNMS) or some other hard drive cleaning software will get rid of the small bits and pieces of transaction information that hackers look for if they ever manage to get a hold of your system.  You don’t need to clean up after every single purchase, but if you shop a lot, once a week is not too much.

Don’t be afraid. Listen, I come from possibly the least tech friendly family east of Amish country.  It was only last year that I was able to convince my mother that she could actually use her debit Mastercard at the supermarket and not have to pay credit card fees on it.  Shopping online can be a bit imposing, especially when you have to buy things “site unseen”.  But at some point, you have to drop the walls and just trust other people or companies to do what they promise.  Once you make that first purchase from Amazon, NewEgg (click the banner ad on the page!), or any number of major retailers’ websites, you’ll be good to go in no time.