The new wave of price comparison online shops has helped online shopping and customers who prefer to buy from online stores a lot. Firstly such stores ensure that customers get a given product at a price lesser than what it would be in specific stores. Such stores add to the value of products costs of promotion, maintenance of stores and sales people etc. which takes the overall price much above the dealer price. Online shops like Amazon, abebooks and ebay along with many other sites, due to their large networks can provide the same items at much lesser cost.
These online price comparison shops, especially ebay and abebooks also enable customers to buy used books and other articles that are auctioned by their owners. The first advantage is that you get a firsthand review of the product besides getting it at a lower cost. Secondly, because it is such a popular forum one can find rare products, books which are out of print, great antique furniture and many other items which people are looking for but not sure where to obtain from. Since some of these sites have auctions and others allow customers to review products and write comments, one can always get a few more opinions than are available at stores.