You may well have encountered Lasoo, the Australian site which offers digitised versions of junk mail catalogues, before, but the operation just underwent a major update with the launch of u.Lasoo, which essentially adds social networking and shopping comparison . You can enter your own posts which link to Lasoo deals or other shopping bargains, and rate posts from other users. The big difference from similar sites such as OzBargain is that you can also run Google AdSense ads on your posts, using an existing AdSense account. While in practice this might not earn you a lot of money -- I suspect posts without extra ads might end up rated higher and attract more users -- it's an interesting twist on a familiar model.

The Internet may be a global phenomenon, but there's still plenty of online stores that flat-out refuse to sell anything to people outside their own country. If you've been lusting after some apparently-impossible-to-acquire goods Stateside, Price USA might offer a solution. Send in your order and Price USA will have it shipped via a US agent to any address in Australia. Fees for the service are 5% of the order value (with a minimum of $10) plus shipping costs. Previously-mentioned WorldPurchases offer a similar service.

Sites that let you book cheap local hotel rooms online are hardly a new commodity -- in the local market, there's Wotif, Hotelclub, Quickbeds and Check-In (and they're just the ones I can think off without prompting). Apparently that hasn't dissuaded eBay and Webjet from entering the fray with a new and similar offering, lotsofhotels.com.au. On an initial test, there's not much to differentiate the site (other than a scandalously slow search feature), and it doesn't take advantage of two obvious options for this partnership -- signing in via your eBay details or making payments via PayPal. As well, the inventory seems much smaller than most of the aforementioned competitors, but for budget-minded travellers, it never hurts to have another comparison option in your bookmarks. [lotsofhotels.com.au]

Since its launch earlier this month, the government-backed GROCERYchoice http://www.grocerychoice.gov.au/ shopping comparison site has suffered fairly heavy criticism, not least because it doesn't offer detailed enough information on the composition of its shopping baskets or let you compare prices in different areas. There's not much relief on offer for the former, but blogger Sean Carmody put together a neat script that gathers data from all the regions the site assesses and collates it, identifying the cheapest chains overall. That unsurprisingly turns out to be ALDI, although Carmody points out that given its lack of representation nationwide, it may have an unfair advantage. Read the full post for lots more insight into what GROCERYchoice can -- and can't -- tell us with a little help. [Digging into GROCERYchoice]

The government-backed GROCERYchoice price comparison site is now operational. Enter your postcode or location to see the weighted prices of a standard basket and a collection of staple items at Coles/Bi-Lo, Woolworths/Safeway, Franklins, independent chains and ALDI (staples only), based on survey data collected across the country. The figures is being updated monthly and covers broad areas , so it's not a site for daily visits, but it could help you decide if your local supermarket is really such a good deal.

Basket price isn't everything, of course: for me, living without a car, proximity outweighs almost any price advantage. What factors would make you switch supermarkets? Let us know in the comments. [GroceryChoice via AustralianIT]

Regular tech bargain hunters will already be aware of comparison shopping site staticICE, and might have even installed an extension for their browser for easy access. For bulkier items where you don't want to pay a fortune in postage, here's a neat trick: narrow your search by state by adding the filter state:qld (or whatever state you want) to restrict the results. (As with most comparison sites, enter as much information as possible: the default sort is by price, and typing a single world like "iPod" will get you lots of cheapo accessories.) [staticICE]

Don't toss that CD you don't need anymore—swap it for something else you've been eyeing with social swapping site Commuto. Find goods you want at Commuto and set up in-person sales (should money be requested) or face-to-face swaps with the member who's offering what you want. Commuto offers a large database of items to choose from, and it will match up the UPC symbol or ISBN with the title of the product if it can locate it. You can also create a wishlist for prospective swappers. Like Craigslist, Commuto takes no commissions. Currently, Commuto is in beta with small but growing communities, and it looks promising, especially if the sheer size of Craigslist is overwhelming.

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It's a familiar problem: you spot an item you want in an online store, and then discover that it won't deliver to a non-US address or without a US credit card. WorldPurchases offers itself as an intermediary, allowing you to order from multiple US retailers. Pretty much every major online store is covered (though sadly no eBay). The service charge is 5% of your total order and shipping from the US, but that still might work out cheaper than buying locally for some items (especially if you take advantage of services like Amazon's Super Saver Shipping to minimise postage). If you've used WorldPurchases or a similar service, let us know how it went in the comments. (Thanks Tony!) [WorldPurchases]

Firefox only: Save time shopping at Amazon.com with the new Better Amazon Firefox extension, which adds helpful tweaks and features to Amazon's pages. Better Amazon highlights which products the big A offers Super Saver free shipping for in search results, automatically enlarges product images, shortens Amazon URLs for easy emailing, and collapses superfluous junk on the page when you just need to get simple tasks done. After the jump, download Better Amazon and get your (stateside) online shopping done more efficiently.

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Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): Free review-aggregating extension Pluribo adds a subtle tweak to Amazon product pages that can often have hundreds, even thousands of reviewers weighing in on a product. After scanning the reviews, Pluribo adds a small pop-up bar at the bottom of each Amazon page, stringing together the most prevalent adjectives and thoughts on each product into one or two cohesive lines. Hovering over each adjective gives you a pop-up with more detail on how it was used, so you be sure you're avoiding the same kind of editing used in summer movie posters. The extension works mostly with electronics at the moment, but the creators aim to expand soon. Pluribo is a free download, works wherever Firefox does.