the Cost of Personal Shoppers

The service involved a shopper independently finding specifically-requested and somewhat-hard-to-find items from local vendors and delivering them to me. The price broke down to about $12 per item over their retail cost, and the price above only refers to the service provided, not the price of the items.

The company also offered price negotiation services and shopping assistance for a variety of types of items.

For the negotiation services, the company guaranteed they'd save more than their fees for the negotiation, and for the independent shopping I only had to pay for the service for items they were able to acquire.

I'll admit it, I was lazy and had left some Christmas shopping until the last minute. Honesty I'm surprised the service came as cheap as it did. Seeing as it saved me time wading through crowds on busy weekends not knowing if I'd find what I needed, I'm happy to have paid what I did for the service. There were a couple items that they couldn't find, but they saved me express shipping costs on the items they did get for me.

Although they have connections to people who can offer good deals and know where to look for hard-to-get stuff, they can't work miracles. Look for a place that you only have to pay for results, rather than for simply trying.