~ How To Be An Online Shopping Pro ~

– It’s convenient. I can do it in my jammies, stop to change a couple diapers, make breakfast, change more diapers and come back when I’m ready.

– I can comparison shop, quickly! I can make sure I’m getting the best price around because I can quickly go to the sites of major stores to check their prices. It’s also perfect because I get to read reviews on the product. I’ve saved myself from buying lots of duds!

– I don’t have to lug my kids around town. It’s not easy loading and unloading 4 kids in the car and then managing them throughout the stores. I would much rather pay $5 dollars shipping to spare me the agony, any day.

There are some warnings for shopping online that everyone must know:

1. Only buy from legitimate shops – If you have never heard of it and the store looks fishy…Google the company. See if you can find any good/bad reviews on it. Look it up on the Better Business Bureau’s web site to see if they have had complaints filed against them. Also, be wary of any business that only accepts wires/money orders. That’s usually a bad sign. It’s best to pay through Paypal or with your credit card. Both are secure and have measure you can take against unauthorized charges. If you’re still worried about the shop, go elsewhere. Remember the old saying…if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

2. Check for site security – You don’t want any personal info divulged for the world to see. Make sure that in the address bar you see “https://” not “http://”…notice the missing “s”. The “S” means secure. You can also notice on the bottom right of your screen a padlock. If the padlock is open, it is not secure. If it is closed, it is. Also, only answer the minimum required questions (usually shown by an asterisk sign).

3. Know the shipping prices – Slimy sellers will often make a product extra cheap to entice you to buy and then totally gouge you on the shipping! You might find a fabulous deal on designer sunglasses for $40 bucks and then when you get to checkout $50 dollars has been added for shipping! Don’t be a sucker.

4. Always check the seller’s ratings – Many sites such as Amazon, Ebay, and Etsy will let you see ratings/reviews of the sellers. Take note of how many items they have sold and their rating. Let that influence your decision on whether or not to buy from them.

5. Uncheck email solicitations boxes – Many times in checkout there will be a box that is checked, by default, allowing the store to send you their emails. If you want them, fine. If not, uncheck it. What really chaps my hide is the shops that won’t give you an option of unchecking the box…Victoria Secret’s…yes, I want to buy some of their stuff. But, I could do without the half -naked pictures of chicks filling up my family email box. No thanks.

So, those are some basics to keep you happy and safe. Next, shopping suggestions…

First, be a review reader. Eventually there should come a point where you are sick of wasting money on crap and want to get it right the first time. And, who better to hear about a product than from than someone who actually owns it?!? There are lots of sites that have reviews but most of them don’t have very many. I try to spend most of my time in the places with lots of reviews because it saves time and gives me a better idea how well liked a product is.

These are my favorite review sites:

For Beauty Products: http://www.makeupalley.com/ This is an awesome site where girls review everything beauty products. You have to sign up for an account but then you can browse, read reviews, and sort the results by rating, newest reviews, etc.

For Kitchen/Cooking Items: http://www.cooksillustrated.com/ is neat because they thoroughly research all cooking equipment and give their recommendations. There is a monthly charge to have access to this site but if you love to cook, it might be worth it…especially for a month or two. They also test recipes over and over again until they can get them perfect. Their cookbooks are insanely interesting because they go step-by-step through each recipe and explain how they ended up deciding upon exactly how the recipe should be. For example, they will try a recipe with one egg added and then two…see which is better. Try the same recipe with 1/2 tsp. vanilla and then more…see which is better. Really cool. I also read cooking product reviews on http://www.amazon.com/.

For Everything Else: My top go-to site is http://www.amazon.com/. There are millions of reviews on millions of products there. I love to look up the product in need and then change the sort to either “bestselling” or “average customer review”. That will show you what is most popular or what got the most positive ratings…despite it’s popularity. I always read reviews first here and then if I’m still not satisfied I will check http://www.epinions.com/, http://www.consumersearch.com/, or http://www.consumerreports.org/.

Toys: I also really like http://www.amazon.com/ for toys but also I will look up “award winning toys” and you will see site after site showing you toys that have won awards.

Lastly, once you have found the item you really want based on the reviews you have read, then you need to compare prices. If you type in the entire name of the product you are looking for in a search engine, several sites will come up that compare prices from different stores for you. Or, you can go to the sites themselves, try http://www.bizrate.com/, or http://www.shopping.com/.

Of course, I always check Amazon and eBay as well. The key to eBay is to either not entertain the bidding process and just sort by “Buy it now” and then “Lowest Price + Shipping”…or to get in on the bidding. If you are going to bid, don’t do it until the last couple minutes of the auction. Save the item in “Watched Items” and you can get emails to remind you or just check back a few minutes before the auction is to close. That is the best time to bid because it keeps the inflation minimal and gives the winner the best possible price. It also weeds out a lot of the competition because they don’t have enough time or aren’t at their computers to watch their bid. Remember to check seller’s reviews before buying from anyone on ebay as well as the shipping price. If you are buying big ticket items (cars, tools, instruments, etc.), only buy from reputable ebay stores that have a couple thousand reviews.

Anyway, lots of info…sorry! But, I hope it helps!