Since the first online purchase was made over 25 years ago in 1994, online shopping has turned into a multi-trillion industry worth over $3 trillion. Apart from the convenience it offers, online shopping can also save you tons of money if you know where, how, and when to shop.
Learning how to save more money when shopping online is an essential skill, and in this guide, we’ll show you how to be a smart deal hunter, how to get significant discounts, and ultimately how to save more money for quality products with an online savings account?
Use Google Shopping to Compare Retailers
How often do you use Google shopping when searching for products online? The thing is, this is the first place you should go so you can compare retailer prices to get the best price possible on the same items such as items produced by Garmin tech. Once you’re done searching for the products you need, open the Google shopping tab to see who’s selling the items and at what price.
The Google Shopping tab is also an incredible place to find hard-to-find or trending items, as well. Even better, you’ll only get results for items in stock, and you won’t have to check all retailers to ensure they are stocking the items. It’s not only fast and effective, but you’ll get to save too.
Outsmart Dynamic Shopping
We all know how sneaky retailers can be, and dynamic shopping is a strategy they use to show different prices to different customers for the same products. They base it on customer location, spending, and browsing patterns, as well as the current demand for a product.
This is a technique that retailers have perfected with the advancement of technology. Given that they can tell what customers are willing to pay more, and which ones are always looking for bargains, you could be spending a lot more than you should on products you could get for lower prices.
How do you save while shopping online with these strategies? You can start by clearing your browsing history and your cookies so retailers won’t have information to base their tricks on. You could also switch to incognito mode and take advantage of anonymous browsing, and choose localized website versions.
Check Rakuten for Discounts
Formerly known as Ebates, Rakuten is a great place to check for discounts because it has partnered with more than 2500 stores, which offer cash back to customers. This is a good way to simplify the way you shop, and it doesn’t matter if you’re looking to book a hotel or get your favorite book from Barnes and Noble.
To get these discounts, you first need to sign up with Rakuten, after which you can navigate to the store you need. You’ll get confirmations altering you when cash backs are active at the store, and you’ll get your cashback credited to your account automatically when you make your purchase. Rakuten makes their payments quarterly as long as customers make $5 or more, and you can download their mobile app so save on the go.
Understand the Best Times to Shop
If you want to know how to save more money when shopping online, then you need to understand when to shop. Apart from knowing the best times of year to shop, like Black Friday and early January, when you can get Christmas after-sales, did you know that Monday is the best day of the week to shop?
You see, retailers understand that you have more time to browse products and make purchases on weekends. However, Monday is a sluggish day for most, and retailers feel the need to push online shoppers to make purchases by offering discounts. Besides this, it’s always cheaper to shop directly with the seller instead of going to marketplaces whenever possible and never pay retail.
Use Your Email Receipts to Your Advantage
Did you know you can use your email online shopping receipts to your advantage and save money? You see, you can sign up to websites like Paribus and Waldo and get cash back when prices drop.
When you download Paribus, it’ll monitor your online purchases and alter you when items you purchased goes on sale or is delivered late within a given time frame. Most retailers have a 14-day cushion when online shoppers can get a price adjustment.
The same goes for Waldo as it’s a price-tracking program, and once it detects that the price of an item you recently purchased has dropped, it submits a refund request for you. You can sign up for both and take advantage of price drop refunds.
Use a Cash Back Credit Card
Whenever you use a debit card while online shopping, you’re using a lot more than you should. How do you save money while shopping online if you’re using debit cards? Instead, you should use cashback credit cards because you’ll get a reward every time you swipe. You can get an average of 3% depending on the credit card you use.
Stack on Coupon Promo Codes
Shopping online using promo codes is sweet because you watch as your total decreases with every code. If possible, you can stack on promo codes to save tons of money, and with the right apps, you don’t even need to look for the promo codes yourself.
You can also use several extra emails to sign up for retailer newsletters and get discounts and coupons. This means that when the retailers offer online shopping codes, you get several of them, and you can make multiple shopping trips for major saves.
Abandon Your Shopping Cart
There are two benefits of shopping, filling your cart with everything you need and then abandoning it for two or three days. First, you get to avoid impulse shopping, and second, you give the retailer an opportunity to try and woo you into finishing your purchase. You see, retailers don’t like unclosed deals, especially when customers are so close to completing their purchase.
This means that most of them will reach out to you with offers and discounts. However, you need to sign up and be a member of the merchant app for this to work. You should also keep all the items on your wish list in an online shopping cart so you can purchase them once you get price drop alerts.
Stock up When Things Are on Sale
How do you save more money when shopping online? By stocking up on things you regularly buy when they go on sale. Whenever you find a sweet deal on regular everyday items, you can buy bulk and save a lot of money over the course of using those items.
This is a great idea for non-perishable items like toilet rolls, drinks, shampoo, etcetera. Of course, you should ensure you have enough storage space for all that stuff to avoid having a cluttered home all the time.
Stop Brand Loyalty
We totally understand that you can be loyal to one brand for various reasons. You may find yourself buying the same items every time, but what you don’t know is that you could find a better deal elsewhere.
Search for cheaper alternatives for whatever items you’re willing to alternate, and you may be surprised to find that the quality is the same, if not better. Make a few swaps every shopping trip and see what alternative you like.
Save on Delivery Charges
How often do you take all those delivery charges into consideration? Most people find deals and shop but never really think about how much they have to pay to get the items delivered to their doorstep. Delivery charges can be quite hefty, depending on how often you shop, and it helps to know how to save more money when having your items delivered.
First, start by checking whether the retailer offers free delivery for spending a certain amount of money on their website. It may be better to add a few items to your cart, and it that target instead of paying the delivery fees. Or, you can search online for free delivery codes for the online shop you want to purchase from and see what kind of results you get.
Beyond that, you could also deliver your items to a local store instead of your home. If you have a local collection point close by, you’ll save time, money, and any hassles involved with online deliveries. Also, if you regularly shop at some online shops like Amazon, you can speculate to accumulate. This means that you can pay an annual delivery fee, which tends to be lower.
Get on the Mailing Lists
You may love shopping at certain online stores and don’t mind giving out your email addresses, or getting multiple emails, then sign up with them. Most of the time, they will send you emails when they have offers, sales, discounts, etcetera.
If you are comfortable filling out your birthday, some stores will give you special offers. If getting on the mailing list doesn’t sound appealing to you, you can always like their social media pages where they give customers codes and sales.
How to Save More Money When Shopping Online
Ideally, these are some of the best tips on how to save more money when shopping online. You can make the most of whatever deals, sales, discounts, or shopping codes you find and buy in bulk whenever possible. Challenge yourself and see how much you will save the next time you shop online.
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