Online shopping offers a lot of benefits and it’s by far the most convenient way of shopping today, allowing you to shop from the comfort of your home and avoid crowded stores or long trips altogether.
However, online shopping is not without dangers and you can sometimes make mistakes that could jeopardize your privacy or cost you money. So here are some common mistakes to avoid
1) Avoid saving your personal information
While it may seem convenient to save your personal info for further purchases, if the retailer’s site gets compromised, your account info might be in danger and you may end up losing money, so it’s best to never store personal info on retailer’s website, especially not your credit card number. Saving a username or a password is fine though.
2) Ignoring Shipping costs
Some shoppers tend to overlook this and end up paying more than they initially thought. When shopping for items online, make sure you check the shipping price. Most retailers allow you to filter the results to include shipping costs, so that might be a good idea to get the accurate cost on the items you’re buying.
3) Ignoring the Return Policy
When shopping online, be sure to check the return policy. It contains information of who is financially responsible for the return shipping as well as the time frame in which you can return the product. If you’re not paying attention you might end up with a product that is very costly to return, to a point that it just doesn’t pay off doing it and you end up stuck with something you don’t want.
4) Not doing your research
While you may be accustomed to using a certain store or a website, it’s always recommended to explore other places too. The convenience of online shopping allows you to quickly find and compare the prices of the product you’re interested. This can save you money and help you get the most for your buck.
5) Shopping from a public WiFi
While it might be convenient to shop from a local cafe, you should always avoid sharing delicate private information on a public network. You never know when a hacker might be lurking and some of them specifically target insecure or public connections. Be patient, wait until you get home to your private network.
6) Not reading the customer reviews
A lot of people skip this step, but you really shouldn’t. If the product is bad, people will express their anger, so to avoid really bad purchases, learn from other people’s mistakes. Most accurate reviews are the ones that give the product a middle of the road review, taking into consideration both the flaws and the qualities so it’s recommended to pay attention to those.