Get the Goods for Less on Alice.com [ARTICLE]

Alice.com combines a little Alice-in-Wonderland-whimsy with a lot of Alice-from-The-Brady-Bunch practicality. If your online shopping has been limited to technology gadgets or books and music, it might be time to broaden your horizons. U.S. residence can order everyday essentials and even some groceries from Alice.com with little-to-no retail markup and always-free shipping.

How it Works

For some of its available products, Alice.com works directly with manufacturers to eliminate costs associated with brick-and-mortar middlemen. Everyone has to make money, but instead of charging you higher prices, Alice.com makes its money off of the manufacturers who buy advertising space on the site.

Getting Started

To start using Alice.com, create a free account by identifying the people in your household and choosing a few items that you frequently consume. Product categories cover supplies for your bathroom, office, medicine cabinet, laundry room, pantry, nursery, kitchen and more. Provide Alice.com with your name and e-mail address, create a password and you’re done. You don’t even need to provide a home or shipping address until you’re ready to place an order.

On your first visit, Alice.com starts you off with virtual shelving filled with the types of products you said you use—from bandages to waxed paper. Each category is represented by a blue duck. Click the duck to see how many product options are available in that category or delete the category from your shelves.

Choose a preferred product within a category for it to appear on your shelf in place of the duck. Clicking on the “dental floss” duck, for example, tells you that Alice.com sells 61 kinds of dental floss. You’ll find lots of easy ways to narrow down the options, but you may find you benefit most from other buyers’ reviews. A closer look at GUMr Eez-Thru Floss Threaders reveals two user reviews of five out of five stars.

Tool Sets

Each product also has an expanded view where you can access tools. Dawn Direct Foam Dishwashing Foam is a popular option in the dish liquid category with an average rating of 4.71 stars from 42 reviewers. Expanding your product view reveals these tools:

• Add Product: Clicking this tool gives you options for adding the selected product to your personalized store shelves. Give it a name that works for you, like “foamy dish soap.” Buy it now or buy it later. And, if you want, ask Alice.com to remind you when to order the product again. Either way, you’ll easily find on your next Alice.com shopping trip.
• Delete or Switch Product: Did you find something you like better? Don’t let your shelf get crowded with products you don’t use. Products already added to your shelf can be deleted or switched for an alternative. Alice.com will even recommend similar products by their features, such as big savings, green, premium or popular with friends.
• Product Review: Who do you trust more: the manufacturer or fellow consumers? To see more than the average number of stars awarded by reviewers, click on the Product Review tool.
• Description: Get the details straight from the manufacturer.
• Check Prices: Alice.com is so sure that they have the best deals that they actually show you competitors’ prices. Dawn Direct Foam costs slightly less at Safeway, but the difference is easily made up by Alice.com’s free shipping.
• Videos: A direct link to related YouTube videos gives you product instructions, testimonials or commercials. Dawn Direct Foam features a moving video on how Dawn is gentle enough for bathing ducks caught in oil spills.

Other Ways to Shop

If the idea of creating your own virtual store shelves sounds more cumbersome than whimsical, there are other ways to quickly find what you need on Alice.com. Search or browse for products by room, product name, brand name, the best deals, premium selections, or green/organic products. However you shop, you’ll always find lots of options for sorting and filtering your results until you find exactly what you want.

Clip-less Coupons

On top of its low prices and free shipping, some Alice.com products feature manufacturers’ coupons. There’s no clipping or codes required. Alice.com automatically adjusts your total when a coupon is available. Sometimes you can use a coupon more than once, and other times manufacturers only offer the discount to a select number of people—first come, first served. Recently a two-pack of Opti-Free Replenish Multi-Purpose Disinfecting Solution for contact lenses came with a $4.00 off coupon dropping the price to $12.99.

Check out Checkout

Alice.com requests that you have at least six items in your cart at checkout, which is probably fair considering you’re getting free shipping. Besides, you can always use more toilet paper. Otherwise, checkout is pretty standard. Alice.com is a secure site that accepts Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and PayPal. Ship items to your home address or save other addresses where you’d like items delivered, such as the summer cabin or your office. They should arrive within one to three business days.

On the Record

Consistently using Alice.com could give you a fun and easy way to manage part of your household budget. Alice keeps track of your total coupon savings, total number of products ordered, average monthly spend, total number of shipments and more. Instead of one generic budget line for all your trips to Target, use Alice for a room-by-room look at where your money goes—and where you could potentially save.

How do they make money?

Alice.com makes its money from the manufacturers rather than the consumers. Personal, identifiable information always remains private; however, Alice.com collects a lot of valuable demographic information for its partnering manufacturers. Consumers who post product reviews give manufacturers direct access to their opinions and feedback.

Advertising on Alice.com mostly appears in the form of coupons and other types of product features, so you won’t feel bombarded. You will see a rolling banner of discounted items at the bottom of your web browser. It gets a bit distracting until it reveals a great deal you might otherwise have missed.

This article contains affiliate links that may generate revenue for Noobie. But they won’t cost you anything extra and you’re not missing out on any discounts by using the links. But clicking the links will help pay the bills and allow Noobie to continue finding and sharing products and services like the ones mentioned in this article with you.