NOVEMBER IS barely a wet week old yet many retailers have already festooned their shops with Christmas trees and Santas, and are piping the music of Slade and Wizzard throughout their stores for the joy and delight of their customers.

While Price Watch - along with most reasonably minded people - frowns upon shops that extend the festive shopping season to such an extent that the Christmas stock is forced to compete with Halloween outfits for the attention of shoppers, when it comes to shopping online for presents there's no time like the present.

Much of the talk on the radio and television and comment in the newspapers in the coming weeks will centre around the tens of thousands of people who are set to cross the Border in search of better value, but the savviest shoppers will be bargain hunting from the comfort of their own couches.

For Irish people, the online electronics marketplace has changed significantly since last Christmas, largely because the world's biggest online retailer, Amazon, is now willing to take orders through its UK arm for electronic goods from shoppers in the Republic - something it refused to do in Christmases past. In recent months it has also introduced free shipping to Irish shoppers who spend over pound(s)25 ([euro]28), making it an even more attractive destination in these cash-strapped times.

Even without these changes, the potential savings to be made online are enough to give traditional retailers nightmares. Using only four very well known sites - Amazon, eBay, Komplett and Pixmania - we saved ourselves nearly [euro]1,000 when we shopped last week for a basket of just six items.

A TomTom satellite navigation system with maps covering the UK and the Republic of Ireland costs [euro]400 in retailers in the Republic but sells for [euro]244 on the web; a 120-gigabyte iPod Classic, priced [euro]229 on Irish high streets, is [euro]211 online; a Sony digital video camera costs [euro]425.99 in Ireland but just [euro]276 on the web; a Vaio laptop from the same maker costs [euro]1,249 offline but [euro]777 online; a Roberts internet radio is priced [euro]299 in regular shops but [euro]174 on the web; and an Olympus digital voice recorder, sourced for [euro]45 on the web, was selling for [euro]110 in Dublin shops last week.