How To Find Bargains Online

Author: John Edwards, Published: March 5, 2013

Shopping online is an art form. What do you need to avoid and how can you stay safe whilst you do it? A lot of people find the topic of online shopping terrifying, and often with reason. After all, anyone can set up a website, and unlike a shop on the high street, if you buy something over the internet, you’ll have to pay for it first.

Shop Around – Online Isn’t Always Cheaper

First of all, decide exactly what you’re after. The internet is a fantastic place to research a potential purchase – make sure if, for example you’re buying a new laptop, that you get one that suits your needs and isn’t too powerful for what you need, but which will provide you with enough processing speed to do what you need.

Try searching initially via Kelkoo and Pricerunner. They both use very advanced technology to compare prices across a wide range of websites.

Being patient and using auction sites carefully can work a treat. Very frequently, people misspell items that they’re listing as for sale. In fact, FatFingers.com is a site where you can search for items with misspellings on eBay. This means you can bid on stuff that others just won’t find, and so you’ll end up paying less!

 

Amazon is another very popular online shopping site. However, they have a little-known bargains section. Visit uk.sustoo.com to search through this section for the items you want, at a lower price. Comet, the popular electrical retailer

Staying Safe

Looking for https – if when you look in the address bar at the point of submitting your credit card details, the site must have https at the start of the address in your browser. The reason for this is that otherwise the details of the form are not transmitted securely so malicious people can intersect the data and then use your card details to treat themselves to something special, or just to rinse your account.

Reputation matters – even if a store has https and a secure connection, this is no guarantee of safety even if it’s vital. Anyone can set up a website, and the only qualification for receiving the https start to the address is that they’ve paid £100 or so for a secure connection – they could still view your details. The reputation of the store is important – you know with internet giants like Amazon, Apple or Sony that fraud is unlikely. However, make sure that you’re on their official site; if your address bar reads http://www.dodgybillswebpage.com/amazon, then you’re not on Amazon’s official site.

 

Your computer – if your computer has a virus, it could be running software which tracks every keystroke you make, so someone could see what you’ve typed in, even if it’s your bank details or your email’s password

Use secure passwords, universally – even something like your email password, if hacked, can give away all your other passwords. Criminals can request a password reset with many sites using just their access to your email account alone, and thus this password in particular is important. Maybe you’ve got a password or two stored on your phone? If so, and you get your phone stolen, you’ve just given those away unless you’ve protected it with a PIN number.