Although many people are comfortable with shopping online, there is still a cross-section of society who are unsure about buying online.
Here are my top tips for shopping online.
1. Only buy from reputable sellers – we all know and love the main online retailers such as Amazon, Dixon’s, Currys, etc. but there are also lots of smaller, independent retailers who are equally, if not better placed, to meet your online shopping needs.
2. Ensure there is a contact address and phone number for the retailer – check them out on a search engine and see if there actual address exists.
3. Search for comments from others to see if they are leaving favourable comments in respect of that online retailer.
4. Use a credit card to shop online – preferable a pre-paid credit card – whereby you top up the card with cash to make the purchase and therefore there is limited opportunity for fraud – see this article at my other site shrewdcookie.com – prepaid credit cards.
Credit cards offer additional protection if things go wrong – check the website for your credit card provider to see what they offer in terms of buyer protection.
5. Ensure the transaction is placed through a secure server – this is indicated by the web address changing in the address window to include a “https” at the start and by a closed yellow padlock at the bottom right-hand corner of your web-browser.
6. Check the postage and packing and any other charges at checkout – make sure you know exactly how much it will cost for you to receive the goods and services.
7. Make sure the item being purchased matches exactly what you are wishing to buy – check the colour, the size, etc.
8. Ensure you get any discount or voucher code before making a purchase.
9. Get our newsletter for latest vouchers, discounts and offers.
10. If you use an RSS reader, get our RSS feed.
oh, and I almost forgot…
11. Subscribe to our newsletter – we only deal with reputable merchants many of which have a high-street presence.
