shopping

It's Cyber Monday, and while you're busy shopping online, chances are you'll see lots of user reviews on various products. While the majority of those reviews do come from real users like yourself, who are passionate enough to share their opinions on a product, many of them could be fake, left by the vendors themselves to either promote their product or, in some cases, smear competitors.

While it's exceedingly difficult to absolutely prove that a review is faked, here are a few tips on spotting those that aren't from real users. These will come in … Read more

Some of our favorite iOS games are the ones that focus on simplicity when it comes to gameplay and design. Shopping Cart Hero 3 is such a game. It involves sending a little stick-figure-like guy down a hill in a shopping cart and scoring points for making successful jumps and landings. Despite the simple premise, it was surprisingly challenging and super addictive.

Before jumping into Shopping Cart Hero 3, you can click on the question mark to find out which motions to use to play the game. You can practice as much as you like to get the hang of … Read more

Black Friday was a bright day for Internet retailers, as online sales for the key shopping day surpassed $1 billion for the first time.

Bargain hunters spent $1.042 billion online the day after Thanksgiving, a 26 percent increase of last year's Black Friday, according to new figures released today by market analyst ComScore. Online shopping on Thanksgiving Day also increased, totaling $633 million in receipts, a 32 percent increase over Thanksgiving 2011.

"Despite the frenzy of media coverage surrounding the importance of Black Friday in the brick-and-mortar world, we continue to see this shopping day become more … Read more

Mobile Thursday. Black Friday. Small Business Saturday. Cyber Monday. What, there's no love for shopping on Sunday? The Thanksgiving holiday has turned from a single Friday of frenzy into a whole extended shopping weekend of weirdness.

Retailers have already been running Black Friday specials all week long, diluting the concept of a single day dedicated to shopping bargain madness. Digital ad agency Digitas crunched survey numbers and decided the holiday shopping season actually starts at 5:23 p.m. ET on Thanksgiving Day, thanks to a growing number of people making purchases with their mobile devices.

The rise of Mobile Thursday … Read more

It's that time of the year again, when savvy shoppers like yourself head to your favorite online retailers to avoid the ridiculous shenanigans and flesh-pressing of Black Friday. But just because you know enough to buy online doesn't mean that there aren't some good tips worth paying attention to. Here are a few worth repeating for habitual online shoppers.

Change your passwords now because chances are, you haven't in a long time. Change your e-mail account password, change your banking password, and change the passwords for online shopping accounts like at Amazon. A good tip for … Read more

When you're maxing your credit card on Black Friday, creepy store mannequins might actually be eying you.

Retailers are deploying mannequins equipped with cameras that watch for shoplifters and record shopper behavior to improve sales.

The EyeSee mannequin from Italy's Almax SpA is being used with facial-recognition software that can identify the age, race, and gender of shoppers and record how long they spend around a display. Almax says the technology doesn't violate shoppers' privacy. … Read more

A little while back I confessed my general apathy about Black Friday. It could have something to do with my day job -- finding awesome tech deals all year round -- but I just can't work up much excitement about the day. And many readers agreed: most of the day's bargains aren't worth standing in long lines in cold weather and being surrounded by pushy shoppers.

But then I got to thinking. (I hate when that happens.) How could stores recapture some of that old Black magic? What would it take for me to give a damn … Read more

Most thrifty spenders are still turning to retailer sites and not coupon sites when it comes to getting mobile coupons, according to a Nielsen study released today.

Fifty-four percent of U.S. consumers who use their mobile phone or tablet to shop turn to retailer Web sites for mobile deals. Daily deal sites, like Groupon and Living Social, are the second choice with 31 percents. Shoppers also use retailer apps and daily deal apps, but to a lesser degree.

This means consumers are going to the brands they are most familiar with and what is most convenient while their shopping … Read more