These days, a lot of people prefer to shop online, rather than buying items in person.
Shopping online means that you can find and purchase the things you want from the comfort of your own home, without having to worry about checking the prices of products in different stores. When you buy online, you can save money on petrol, and you give yourself more opportunities to compare prices and take advantage of online discounts.
However, just like anything else in the budgeting world, it’s essential to have a strategy to get the most out of your online shopping experiences. Here’s how you can save more when you’re shopping online.
1. Never Settle for the First Price you See
The first and most important rule to better online shopping is that the first price you see is rarely going to be the best. This rule applies to everything you can purchase online, from a personal loan to a new television. Rather than just accepting a price as soon as you see it, take some time to compare your options by looking at the deals available from other websites.
If you can, download a reputable plugin that will automatically apply voucher codes and discounts to your cart too. This will you don’t miss out on any extra saving opportunities when you do decide to click through to the checkout page.
2. Abandon your Shopping Cart
Another great way to save some money when you’re shopping online is to abandon your shopping cart. Add everything you want to cart in the shop you want to purchase with, then leave the site just before you’re about to click “Buy.” This will often lead to a company sending you a discount code to your email to help you finish the sale.
Remember, you’ll need to set up at least a guest account with a site for them to send you your voucher code. If you don’t want to get this email in your typical inbox, create another email you can use for this purpose.
3. Ask about Retroactive Discounts
Have you ever decided to buy an item, just to see it go on sale the next day? If that happens to you, then you might be able to get the discount you’re owed by contacting the customer service team. Go and message the company that you bought the product from and explain the situation. If they have a free returns policy, you could even return the item and buy it again at a discounted price.
Obviously, getting retroactive pricing is a saving technique that comes with a time limit. You can’t expect a company to apply a discount to an item that you bought two months ago when it eventually goes on sale.
4. Clear your Cache and Cookies
When you buy products online – particularly from larger shopping sites that collect lots of products from different retailers, those sites may use your information to adjust prices to your local cost-of-living and other essential algorithms. This could mean that you end up having certain items marked-up depending on the data that you house in your browser.
To keep your costs as low as they should be, either stick to shopping on Incognito mode or delete your browser cache and cookies before you add anything to your basket. This will cause dynamic algorithms to remain neutral.
5. Create a Shopping Schedule
One of the easiest ways to over-spend is to buy items on impulse rather than planning your purchases. On the other hand, if you know exactly what you want to buy and when you can do your research and make sure that you’re getting a good deal.
Mark days on your calendar when certain retailers have sales that you want to keep an eye on for significant purchases throughout the year. Additionally, for your smaller buys, remember that many online retailers offer their best deals between Wednesdays and Fridays.
6. Ask for a Price Match
Finally, if you find an item that you want online for a lower price from a new retailer, but you’d prefer to make the purchase with a company you already know or trust, message their customer service team. Sometimes, companies will be willing to lower their price to match the cost of an item you’ve found elsewhere.
Although this doesn’t always happen, there’s no harm in getting in touch with the brand to find out more. At the very least, you’re showing the business that you’re loyal to them, which could earn you a discount or loyalty code.
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