So what kind of deals can you get? These sites offer discounts, coupons, and promotions from retailers in any category, such as pet supplies, jewelry, apparel, toys, books and magazines, flowers and gifts, home and garden, sports and recreation, shoes, luggage, office supplies, and more. Many of them also feature a search function where users can look for deals on specific items or from specific retailers.

A lot of coupon-site promotions include free shipping, big "dollars-off" discounts on purchases from certain retailers or on certain items, and more. Many of merchants featured on coupon sites provide "affiliate only" links to discounts, meaning shoppers would be unable to find those deals elsewhere. Some sites even offer a mailing list users can join to be notified of great deals when they come up.

These sites are usually updated frequently, sometimes even hourly, meaning you can be sure to get that one day only or weekend special. So before you go to make your next purchase on anything, remember that coupons sites can ensure you have best deal you can possibly get.

Merchant Account This is a necessity of any ecommerce business, because you need to be able to take payment in your store. There are several different ways you can go here. You can either go with a 3rd party processor, or a true merchant account which is built into your shopping cart. The most well-known 3rd party processors are Paypal and 2CheckOut. If you are going with Paypal, I would strongly recommend you have another payment processor as well. There are many users who won't buy from someone who only accepts Paypal, but then again there are users who would only go with someone who accepted Paypal. Personally, I'd recommend using Paypal and a merchant account. A merchant account makes your store a lot more professional, and gives you more flexibility. There is a unique company that you can get a merchant account from called ProPay. You get a "virtual credit card terminal" and there are no monthly fees, just a low annual fee.

Web Host If you have a website, you need a web host! For most shopping carts, you will need PHP and MySQL, so make sure that you look for hosts that support technology that you need. If you go with a Yahoo Store, your hosting is taken care of by Yahoo. If you choose osCommerce, Miva Merchant Pro, or another shopping cart program, you will need to find a web host. If you plan on collecting credit cart numbers directly on your website, you will need a SSL certificate. To have a SSL certificate, you need a dedicated IP address. Most hosts will offer you a dedicated IP address for an extra monthly price. You can get a SSL certificate for $29.99 at GoDaddy (http://godaddy.com).