MONEY: WANNA DEAL? CLICK HERE.

Here's a confession: I don't like going to stores. I'd be more than happy buying everything from toothpaste to my next car on the Internet. The best part is being able to sit at my computer and play retailers off each other. Give me free shipping. And while you're at it, what about 10 percent off?

I know I'm not alone on this. Last fall some 85 million shoppers spent $1.5 billion a week at Web sites that promised fast, cheap and easy. Naturally, new retailers are flooding the Web. That's great for getting deals, but it also makes them harder to evaluate. It's easy to comparison shop when there are five sites selling a particular pair of jeans; but how do you find the best price among 5,000 sellers? Call in the portals. The biggest shopping sites aren't retailers at all, but services that lure shoppers with price comparisons, discounts and rebates and then point shoppers to specific retailers. Some tips on smart clicking:

Disloyalty pays. The best sites for comparison shopping include Shopping.com, BizRate.com, mySimon.com, NexTag.com, PriceGrabber.com and PriceSCAN.com. Try 'em all: they each have strengths and don't cover the same stores or products. But don't just go for the top-listed item or the lowest price. "There are hidden fees and relationships," warns Lance Harke, a Florida lawyer who specializes in online consumer cases. These Web sites are often paid by retailers for favorable placement. Some retailers win the price wars by burying extra charges in shipping costs. The best sites invite you to type in your ZIP code to compare prices that include shipping and taxes.

Cheapest isn't always best. To avoid nasty surprises, check the ratings from other shoppers before you trust a new retailer, warns Patti Freeman Evans, an analyst with Jupiter Research. Most customers will spend a little more on a store with a good rep, she says.

Cut-and-paste coupons. Once you've made a decision, check whether there's a special deal to give you free shipping or a price cut. There are too many coupon sites to list here, but start with Coolsavings.com, Dealcatcher.com or Jumpon deals.com. They do a decent job of collecting various sales and discounts and providing the mysterious codes needed to unlock them. Don't just buy the item through these sites, unless it's a killer deal that can't be used elsewhere. Just copy the code and move on.

More, please. Next step: head to the rebaters. These sites all use the same model: retailers--unknowns as well as big names like Target and the Gap--pay them to send shoppers to their sites. They rebate most of that payment to you and pocket the rest. This started with Upromise.com, a Web site that deposits discounts from retailers into your college-savings fund. But the new rebaters will get you the discounts and send you a check; you don't have to link it to any special account. The big four are FatWallet.com, Rebateshare.com, Ebates.com and Butterflymall.com, the newcomer with the longest list of retailers and some of the fattest rebates. There's no reason not to join all of these sites. They all offer different (and ever-changing) discounts. If you're shopping at Lands' End, for example, you can get a 2.5 percent rebate by going through Rebateshare, but nothing on the other sites. If it's a Fossil watch you're after, you'll get a 12 percent rebate at Butterflymall but only 7 percent or 8 percent at the others.