When shopping online there are many things to consider, here are some guidelines to make your experiences a positive one.
Buy online or in physical stores!
Many people shop in physical stores because they feel that shipping costs only add to the total cost; however, unless you live in a high population density such as a major city, most of the time shipping costs are less than the gasoline required to travel there and back. a physical store, especially when you’re bargain hunting, which likely requires a stop at more than two stores to compare prices, and even then, when you find the best price (even if you’ve researched your favorite stores online), you risk spending of fuel only to find out that your item is out of stock, so by the time you return home with your item, your fuel expense will likely be higher than most expedited shipping costs. There’s also the time consideration, I live in a rural area where the nearest grocery store is about 12 miles away, and the big discount retailers, over 15 miles away, with an average speed limit of 50 mph, it would take about 20-25 minutes of travel each way, about 20 more minutes to identify and locate the specific items in the store, then there is the line at the checkout area, depending on the time of day/night at whichever one goes, it could be as little as 5 minutes and as long as 30 as I’ve waited in lines to pay at big box retailers, so not only is shopping online eco-friendly, but you also get over an hour and a half of your free life until doing other more desirable activities!
Is it safe to buy online?
Many people still cling to the idea that online shopping is very risky, however, with the implementation of a number of encryption techniques, your personal and credit card information is quite safe, but if you still feel a little insecure When entering your credit card information on a website, there are additional steps you can take to ensure that you do not incur any liability. Most credit cards offer a zero liability clause on their cards for any fraudulent charges if you pay a small monthly fee, usually after a 30- to 90-day free trial, in which case any charges that appear on your credit statement account is not your authorized purchase. , it will be unconditionally credited to your card and an investigation will most likely take place to try to prevent a repeat.
Once you get over the apprehension of credit card fraud, there are a number of practices that will ensure a positive experience.
Is the lowest price the best offer?
When comparing prices from different eCommerce stores there are a few things to consider, whether the item is new, refurbished, repackaged, a factory second or even the brand listed, these are all important factors to consider when comparing prices. , and many sites will state what grade of merchandise they have if it’s good for business, for example I’ve seen prices for a specific digital camera range from $99.95 to $279.95 for the same camera and the MSRP was $229 so I ask myself why so high or so low, if I choose the lower price, do I get what I would get if I paid the higher price? Well, obviously higher price is not the first choice, but here are some answers, higher prices may be due to poor choice of wholesaler or distributor, or lack of purchasing power due to low sales volume, or high overheads that need to be considered by the merchant, or maybe they are also a physical store and don’t want to severely undercut the prices in the real store with their online prices. Now, when evaluating low prices, consider purchasing American-made items, because there are a number of foreign manufacturers producing cheap imitations of the original, which are available at much lower prices than their American counterparts, also check the item listing to see if they are very small (fine print) or similar colored text (almost invisible), indicating it is refurbished or a factory second, and when purchasing brand name items make sure the image of the item reflects the brand name advertised, and not an inferior imitation, this is more so when purchasing accessories such as picture cards, removable mass storage devices, and other types of digital media and similar accessories.
Another thing to consider is the price of shipping and the geographical location of the merchant, for example, compare the shipping costs for the same item on a few sites, which are in the same area, if a price is much higher, they may be advertising a low price but they make up for it with a handling charge added to the shipping charge, also if you narrowed down your choice of sites to just a few then buy from the one that is geographically close which will minimize the cost of shipping, an example would be if you live in california and your small sites are located in new york, dallas and seattle the lowest shipping charges would probably be from seattle now if there is a site also in california you might still consider the seattle site for save on sales tax, as long as the business doesn’t have a physical store in California as well, because then they will also be required to collect sales tax, on the plus side, some merchants before they can show extremely low results. prices on items that have been discontinued by the manufacturer, and retailers want to move excess inventory before they lose their profit margin entirely, so checking with the manufacturer, whether the item is out of date, will explain such a low price , or they could be a “wholesale to the public” type merchant with tremendous buying power and storage space, in which case the savings are passed on to you, another explanation for low prices may be the use of drop shippers and co-ops. warehousing, which reduces overhead for online merchants because they don’t need to tie up thousands of dollars of inventory to make minimums and the expense to store that inventory, all of which can contribute to lower prices, as well as being in a retail location very competitive.
Comments and ratings!
There are many opportunities to provide feedback or rate your experience with a site. What do you choose, a highly rated store with higher prices, or a low to no rated store with lower prices? Well I have many times stopped giving a rating, by not responding to the email sent, just due to lack of time, so these should be considered on the lighter side, for example a lot of ratings may not be all positive, or they may have lost sight of customer value because the business is so good that they no longer feel the need to go the extra mile to make or keep a satisfied customer, on the other hand, no rating could mean it’s a store reasonably new and haven’t gotten the customer count from the big guys but my thought is this, give the little one has skyrocketed, in their quest for sales they are more likely to go the extra mile to win over a customer and possibly offer an incentive to return to them for future purchases.
How to search for your purchase!
I would recommend getting as much information about a product or products from the original manufacturer’s website, they usually offer the most comprehensive information on their products and usually a suggested retail price, but they usually don’t sell directly, they provide a list of sites you can buy, with that being said, consider this, after visiting the manufacturer’s site you probably made your decision as to which model of product you want to purchase, when doing a search on the search engine please include the make and model in your search query, instead of a general search term like “fish finder” or “digital camera” will accomplish a few things, first it will reduce the number of results and make the results you get the most relevant, then the engines search engine will usually, in these circumstances, provide a “compare prices” link, for example, Google will provide results from Froogle or Yahoo ! The search could provide a Yahoo! Shopping link to a price comparison list from potential merchants, and then there are links like Shopzilla, Price grabber, Next tag or shop.com to name a few, all of these links provide easy access to price comparison but Keep in mind that many of these results are “sponsored” meaning the merchants paid to appear in that search result, and they may not be the only relevant sites to choose from!
Where am I going to buy many items?
Many e-commerce sites are quite specialized, offering a full selection of the type of merchandise they specialize in, a metal detector store for metal detectors and accessories, or a camera store for digital cameras, photo cards, and batteries. , and so on. Although these stores often have the most competitive prices, they may not be your best option when shopping for a lot of different items, that’s where your online department stores might be a better option, and I’ll tell you why, if you were to buy a detector. of metals. for his nephew, and a digital camera for his mom, and a GPS fish finder for his dad, and a paintball gun for his brother, and some jewelry for his niece, buying these items each at a different store will not be just as profitable as taking some time to find a department store that has all of these different items to offer, even if their prices are a bit higher, because all shipping will be calculated by the total weight of the order, not rounding each item up to the next whole pound as when purchased in separate stores.
May all your Internet shopping experiences be positive!