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Online Shopping Tips to Save Money – New Rules for a Great and Smart Shopping
About 1.66 billion people around the world bought items and services online in 2017, and retail e-commerce made sales worth around $2.3 trillion in the same year.
In the US, around 79% of people shop online; that means 8 out of 10 Americans go to virtual stores and purchase items. That number is an astounding increase compared to the year 2000 when only around 22% of consumers were making purchases through online stores.
Shopping online has slowly, but surely, become a norm around the world. It offers convenience, options, and efficiency.
Now, you can get your hands on items made on the other side of the world with just a single click. Due to its increasing significance, it is important to know how to shop effectively.
Here are some tips for you to consider to make your online shopping more efficient and safe for you.
Plan To Save
Plan your purchase before actually surfing the catalogs in the online shop. This will prevent you from making getting sucked in by those flashing promos that trigger impulse buying tendencies.
People have a tendency to disregard budgeting when shopping online because what they usually use is credit card or debit card.
The absence of real money makes it appear that you can shop galore, without actively seeing the cost accumulate as you go. In addition, when shopping, you should consider doing it in one online retail store.
For example: if you’re shopping for a beautiful girl’s fashion, try to stick with the same retailer; it can save you money from multiple shipping fees.
They usually provide discounted or free shipping when you have reached a certain amount of money spent.
Use Cookies to Your Advantage
This tip may sound concerning because you might think we’re trying to rig the system, but that’s not the case; it’s more like taking advantage of the system online stores use to try and get you to buy.
Shopping sites use cookies to monitor your shopping habits. When you surf the net for a specific item, and then open a shopping site, you may see a promo about the item you surf or something related to it.
Cookies allow sites to know how much you usually spend when shopping online, what items you usually look for, and then bombard you with ads and promos targeting those items and price ranges.
They will display your usual items, if not a related one, and give suggestions on what they assume will entice you, in an attempt to compound their sales.
We can use these cookies to our advantage by making the items you want to sit in your basket or cart for a couple of days. When the system detects this kind of behavior, they will push you to buy it by giving you a discount code or coupon.
Compare The Same Item On Different Platforms
Just like how different physical stores have a different set of prices, online stores also compete in pricing. Before making the final click, make sure you have compared the item you like to the other competing online stores; the same items.
There are a number of apps and sites that can automatically compare the price and help you decide which site provides the best tag. One of the best online shopping tips to save money.
Look For Security Protocols
The online domain is not without its share of crime, and cybercrime is most prevalent in online stores.
An estimated $40 million a year is lost to online fraud. Common crimes include identity theft and unauthorized credit card purchases.
Apart from staying put on reputable websites, you need to know several steps to take to ensure your personal information is secure.
Make sure the website starts with https://, which is the standard secure socket layer for encryption.
Don’t make big and critical transactions on public Wi-Fi – they are usually unsecured, and lack encryptions, making the connection vulnerable to hackers.
If you can, make your setup a VPN to add an extra layer of protection to all your online transactions.
Online Shopping Tips to Save Money- Look For Product Reviews and Ratings
Before making purchases, make sure that your items are backed up by reliable reviews and ratings. Apart from reading them, it is important to check the background of the reviewers.
Some websites use robot programs that generate automatic, five-star reviews, so if you’re not seeing any negative or less than five-star reviews, the product may not live up to its supposed reputation.
In addition, you should also check the credibility of the reseller. Most marketplaces are platforms for resellers, and the website only shoulders the responsibility for securing your credit card and personal information.
The responsibility of determining the quality of the items still falls on the resellers, so it is important to know them by checking their ratings and the customer feedback about how they handle issues.
