If you think that Internet shopping on a Sunday gets you the best deals, then think again. Tuesday is actually the best day of the week if you want to grab a bargain, according to an exhaustive analysis of on-line shopping.

Thursday is the second best day followed by Friday - but Sunday is when you are least likely to make a saving.

The study also looked at months and found that the pre-Christmas rush in November is when there are most bargains around on the web - and not the January sales.

US retailer reporting service SumAll examined 3,000 companies and half a billion transactions as part of its report.

It worked out the average discount offered to consumers on each day of the week and over different times of the year.

The best day of the week was Tuesday where savings were 4.81 percent, followed by Thursday on 4.80 percent. In third place was Friday at 4.65 percent, then Wednesday at 4.13 percent and Monday at 4.11 percent.

Only the foolish would shop on a Saturday where the discounts were typically 3.84 percent - and Sunday was the worst with 3.37 percent.

The analysis by month is even more surprising as most people think that waiting until the post-Christmas sales would yield the biggest discounts.

In fact, November is when you will get the largest savings at 5.99 percent on average. January came in second at 4.95 percent, followed by May at 4.50 percent.

The worst month to buy on-line was March where you could expect to save just 2.76 percent. Consumers and experts have been speculating for years about the best time to shop online.

Booking a flight has almost become a science with some claiming that buying six weeks before you travel guarantees you the best price. However a recent analysis by the US Airlines Reporting Commission found that was not actually the case.

Not only did the six week window fail to stack up, in some cases the best fares were on sale as long as 24 weeks before departure.

The ARC said that booking well in advance is best advised for busy routes or long haul flights, as the price only tends to go up.

(Read by Brian Salter. Brian Salter is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)