The economic turmoil the country seems to be going through has everyone in a panic. One industry that is seeing more panic than many others is the retail industry. With the holiday season just around the corner, the retail federation is terrified that this will be one of the worst holiday selling slumps they can remember.

With consumers in a tizzy, wondering what will happen to the economy, many retailers are worried that means they won’t come into their shops and spend money. They may be right, to some extent. A lot of consumers have said they are worried about the economic situation, so they are cutting back their spending this year.

If you aren’t one of those cutback consumers, you may be able to get a lot of great deals when you go shopping.

Instead of waiting until the last minute to offer great deals, many retailers are starting early, hoping to encourage people to spend a little more this season. If you know how to work the system correctly you can not only get those good deals, but also get something back for shopping.

It’s not just the retail shops that are trying to get good customers this holiday season. The credit card companies are under pressure to get good credit risk customers to sign up for their cards, to make up for some of the bad lending decisions they have made in recent years. This means they are willing to offer more and more perks to get you in the door.

It’s time to look for the best shopping rewards credit card. A shopping rewards credit card is just what it sounds like, a card that will give you rewards, of some sort, when you go shopping.

Traditionally, the best shopping rewards credit cards are connected to a particular store or mall. This could be a smaller store, like a bookstore, or larger stores where you can buy nearly anything like Target. Each of the cards has different shopping rewards. Some offer points you can add up towards free items in the stores, others offer discounts. But the best shopping rewards credit cards will give cash back on purchases you make.

If you play your shopping rewards credit cards right you can find yourself quickly and affordable knocking all those presents off your holiday shopping list while getting points towards free items or even a little cash back that you can spend on yourself.

The latest trend for shopping online is to use a portal, which would serve as an entrance to minor and major stores online. The difference between shopping at conventional shopping malls and shopping using portals would be that the latter offer cash back. It would be like strolling through a conventional shopping mall while receiving a coupon book from each store.

These shopping malls are able to offer their merchandise in virtually all categories and sub-categories. These categories would include music, arts, computers, accessories, home and garden, health and beauty, leisure and hobby and a lot more. Online shopping malls definitely make the shopping experience of the online buyer a breeze. It is a one-stop shop, which allows you to get your money back for every purchase you would be making. There are even stores that have monthly specials, as well as free merchandise and fee shipping.

Portal online shopping malls do require you to sign in, after which you would be allowed to shop at any store. This is so that they could keep track of the purchases you will be making so that you would be getting credit for them. Stores that are in this kind of mall usually offer cash backs that range from 1 to 40 percent.

A couple of examples would be if you would be going to a store like Target, you would get a cash back of 3 percent; or you could go to Golf Galaxy and also get a cash back of 3 percent; or go to Babies R Us and get a cash back of 3.5%. There are so many online stores with various categories that you can choose from, so you would certainly be able to find a great deal on something that would interest you, on any of these online shopping stores.

Online shopping malls and portals truly offer great shopping options to save a lot of money.

Yes you can save money because the goods for sale in an online shopping mall are normally a lot cheaper than in a physical shopping mall, you will also save time as you do not have to travel from one shop to another carrying heavy shopping bags as the online mall has all the products in the one place, and you do not have to wait at a busy checkout.

You can save gas because you do not have to drive to the mall to do your shopping nor do you have to spend time looking for a parking spot. Also as you are not burning gas you are in fact lowering the amount of pollution in the atmosphere and helping with the war on global warming, and as you are not driving to and from a shopping mall you save even more money.

You do not have to wait for sales at the shopping mall as prices in the online shopping mall are a lot lower on just about every product.

You can browse as much and as long as you feel like without being followed around the store by sales people, you can decide if you want to buy at your own pace .

Just bookmark the page and return to it as many times as you like in order to make up your mind or even show friends or family to get their opinion before you decide to purchase an item.

There is a huge range of products for you to browse, if you can think of something it is most likely to be at the shopping mall.

So don’t get the car out and drive for perhaps thirty minutes in heavy traffic, try to find a parking spot within walking range of a shopping mall and then go from store to store carrying your purchases and then waiting for up to twenty minutes at a busy checkout, then driving home again in heavy traffic and carrying your purchase into the house.

Just turn on your computer and browse at your leisure while having a cup of coffee and order the products you want and have them delivered to your door , from the shopping mall.

Now that’s what I call shopping.