More and more people in the UK are turning to the internet as a way of shopping for the latest technology for the home. As high-street retailing continues to suffer, online shopping is booming. This indicates a significant trend towards shopping online as the best way to buy. Televisions are relatively bulky items but this does not preclude the internet as an excellent way to buy them. Here we make the case for shopping online as the best way to buy your new flat panel television.

Choice

Unlike spending days trawling high street stores to find what you are looking for, typing a search into your favourite search engine is likely to bring you up thousands of results almost instantly. For example, our search for Samsung plasma televisions in the UK brought up 150,000 results. This could be very confusing but let’s just focus on the first page of results. There were several online retailers and at least three price comparison sites that featured in the results. Immediately, it showed that the power of the internet was narrowing down and focusing the search for us. Price comparison sites are particularly useful for quickly identifying the best prices for a particular make and model.

Information

Supposing that you need more information before deciding on the best television to suit your needs. There are many articles that list the top five or the top ten brands in a particular category. There are also many reviews of specific makes and models online. These are reviews carried out by impartial professional reviewers or even customer reviews from people who have already bought the item.  It is much easier to find out the cons as well as the pros online than it is talking to sales staff in a retail store, where you are unlikely to hear anything negative about the goods on sale. Specifications for specific models of television are also readily available along with detailed pictures of the product.

Price

When you have done your research and come up with a short-list of potential televisions to suit your needs, you will want to find the best price going. It is widely acknowledged that you are going to get a better deal online than you will in the high street. For the big retailers, selling online is cheaper and less resource intensive than selling the item through the high street. In most cases this will be reflected by the fact that the price you see online will be cheaper and actually state that it is an online price only. Many of the direct catalogue sites also offer an incentive discount of up to 20% for first time shoppers. Taking advantage of this on a bigger purchase like a television can mean that you have already secured a substantial reduction on your purchase.

After Sales

Most online retailers offer free delivery for items over a certain value and also ways to track your order online. Many even offer free next day delivery. Conditions attached to the sale (the small print) are much easier to locate when you are online and registering the guarantee is also made easier and quicker through the online interface. All online transactions covered by UK law allow for a seven day cooling off period during which you are within your rights to cancel the order, or return the product in original packing and condition for a full refund.

There is now every reason to feel not only confident about the security of online shopping, but also confident that you are making an informed choice and securing the best price available. Trailing around the high street to buy your next flat screen TV could be a thing of the past if you take advantage of the many benefits of shopping online

David is technology enthusiast who reviews the latest TV’s to get the very best in sound quality and picture technology.