In the retailing of any goods and services, the overhead costs of marketing drive up their inevitable price. Probably the single most expensive component of those overheads lies in the cost of premises and the cost of servicing those premises. Any retailer who can cut the costs of maintaining expensive premises, therefore, can cut the price of the goods and services sold – and this, at its simplest, is why both you and the retailer can make internet savings.

The internet has brought about many revolutions in the lives we lead today. One of the most important of those revolutions has been the explosive growth in internet marketing and internet shopping. No trader these days can afford to ignore the opportunities presented by the internet. Local, national and international markets have been opened up to all conceivable goods and services. The potential for expanding markets in this way – for increasing their supply – has had the effect of reducing the real price of those goods and services.

But huge savings in the costs of sales have also been made because most internet operations, by definition, do not require an expensive high street shop-front or store from which to open the doors to a buying public. Expensive premises, with heating, lighting and air-conditioning, rents, taxes and maintenance can give way to an online presence which makes itself known to even more customers online. Salary costs can also be slashed by replacing counter-staff, clerks, doormen and maintenance crew with largely automated, electronic ordering, invoicing and despatch and delivery systems.

These are some of the basic theories continuing to be put into keener and more active practice through the development of ecommerce and at least some of those efficiencies are being passed on to the customer in the form of internet savings.

One of the first of the economic sectors to catch on to the potential for revolutionising the marketing of its products to its customers in this way has been the financial services sector. Thanks to its early start, the marketing of financial services products via the internet is now probably the most advanced of its kind and offers some of the best internet savings.

Think of mortgages and loans, credit cards and insurance, not to mention online banking services, and all have felt the revolutionising influence of the internet. Although no online equivalent of the face-to-face independent financial adviser has yet been developed – or is likely to be – a lot of the preliminary guidance and comparison of products can be done by the customer from the comfort of his or her home. Once products have been bought, and accounts opened, these can then continue to be monitored and managed online.

And the process that is helping to reduce the overhead costs of the providers is also the same process that is making competition between providers ever keener. Reduced costs and keener competition combine to make up the driving force behind the most welcome news for the consumer – internet savings on the price of a huge range of goods and services.