Become a Virtual Shopping Pro in Six Clicks

It's only a matter of time before online shopping is officially recognized as a bona-fide competitive sport by the Olympic committee. (At the very least, I think it deserves a pay-per-view event on one of those extreme sports channels at the upper registers of the cable TV lineup.)

No outlet mall -- not even the stadium-sized Mall of America -- can match the breadth of product choices you can pull up on your computer screen. Plus, there's no need to wait for the sales circulars to clog your mailbox, since rabid bargain fans post sneak previews of holiday bargains before the ink on the fliers is even dry.

But a true shopping pro not only scores serious bargains, but does it with the fewest number of clicks. So here's a crash course in online shopping to get you in tip-top shape for the holidays.

1. Check out comparison shopping tools: Sites like Coolsavings.com, Froogle.com, Shopzilla.com, Streetprices.com, and Dealnews.com's companion sites offer tools to compare prices.

2. Re-sort and re-visit: Some comparison websites deliver results skewed by ad dollars -- with those stores who pay for placement getting top billing or activated links to their storefront. Try loading results based on price, location, rating, or other criteria to get a true view of the shopping landscape.

3. Fill in the blanks: To capture results from retailers that may not be included in comparison sites and check on the latest promotions, type in the URL of stores directly to see if their latest promotions are worthwhile.

4. Erase your electronic footprints: Delete all cookies from your browser and search again another day. You want to make sure you're getting as good a price on an item as a first-time visitor to the website. Some e-tailers serve up your old, cached search results (and old prices) to those who have browsed there before. 

5. Compare clicks and mortar: Does your favorite store have an online shop? Sign up for its newsletter and get advance notice of sales and subscriber-only coupons. Also compare online and offline prices -- they aren't always identical.

6. Crack the code: If you shop online, don't leave money on the table by leaving the "enter promotional code here" box blank. Get the scoop on possible savings at sites like Currentcodes.com and CouponCabin.com. Also try typing in the retailer's name and "coupon code" in your search engine.

Motley Fool personal finance expert Dayana Yochim color-coordinates her shopping bookmarks in addition to arranging them by size, category, and season. She does her cardio at the mall by taking the stairs and not the escalator. Dayana's the on-call money trainer at GreenLight.Fool.com, where she whips readers' finances into shape with step-by-step instructions.