Smart Online Shopping Tips » The Unclouded Path

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The holidays are coming up, and that means shopping! With the convenience of online shopping these days, more people are turning to online stores to get all of their holiday shopping done. I do it too. In fact, I’ve been doing most of my shopping online for more than a decade. But as I’ve learned, you need to be careful and pay attention to avoid getting ripped off or getting a poor product. Follow these tips for smarter online shopping.

General Online Shopping Tips

With online shopping being so popular, it’s clear that some people would take advantage of it to scam people. Shopping online is really no different than any online interaction involving sensitive information. So it’s important to take the same precautions as you would with those. The following are some general tips that will help you keep your data safe and save you money.

For Safe Shopping

Check to See If the Site Is Secure

One of the very first things you should do when you look at a shopping website is to see if the site has “https://” in the front of the site’s URL. Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Google Chrome all show a lock icon in the address bar if the site has it. This means the site is secured with TLS (Transport Layer Security; formerly SSL or Secure Sockets Layer). Communications with sites using this protocol are encrypted. Sites without TLS leave the data you provide to the site vulnerable to being read by others. This is definitely not something you want to happen with sensitive stuff, such as credit card information.

Shop Only on Legitimate Websites

You want good deals, and scammers know that too. Often scammers will set up websites that seem like they’re offering unbeatable deals. But by the time you realize the product you “bought” isn’t coming, they’ll already be cashing in with your financial information. Some other websites might actually give you the product you bought but also sign you up for a bunch of subscriptions or fees or make it pretty much impossible to return the product if you aren’t satisfied with it. Ignore too-good-to-be-true ads and deals since these may link you to those sorts of websites.

Only buy from trusted sites and make sure you’re actually on them (by bookmarking them beforehand or getting the link from your search engine). Some scammers make their fake websites look very similar to the real one in order to trick unwary shoppers.

Note that even if a site uses TLS, it’s not a guarantee that the site is legitimate. Also, look for contact information and a privacy policy. Either of those missing is a huge red flag.

Of course, sometimes you might simply be unfamiliar with a legitimate company. If some company sounds unfamiliar to you but seems to be legit, check the reviews of the company or do your own research into it to make sure.

Use Only Legitimate Apps

Like above, it pays to be vigilant about the apps that you use to shop. Get the app (or the link to it) from the company website if possible. Apps from questionable sources could be malware in disguise, waiting to steal your financial information. Currently, malware for smartphones can only get onto your device through these fake apps, so scammers will try to fool you into downloading them (either as an attachment or through a shady site).

Beware of Phishing Attacks

Phishing attacks can come in all sorts of variations, but they all seek to get your personal information. Some may masquerade as a shipping company asking for information to clear up a “problem” with your (probably non-existent) order. Others may try to get you to click on a link in an email promising great deals that takes you to a scammer’s fake, but realistic-looking, website. Still others may try to fool you with fake charity donation scams. The list is endless.

Know that no retailer will ever ask for any personal information. If it seems like you have a problem, double-check with the company by going directly to their website (not through a link in an email). As a rule of thumb, never click on any link in an email unless you are absolutely sure it’s from the real company. It’s usually safer just to go to the company site directly.

Use a Credit Card

Credit cards come with a lot of protections that you don’t have with debit cards. With a debit card, if some scammer gets a hold of the number, it’s all over. They have direct access to your bank account and will probably drain it if you don’t lock it down in time. With credit cards, you can stop fraudulent transactions, and many offer zero liability for those. But, although many credit card companies will notify you of suspicious transactions, it’s often up to you to check on your statement regularly.

Choose Not to Save Financial Information on Sites

It doesn’t matter if the site is a legitimate one, it’s safer not save credit card numbers and other payment info on it. Many sites allow you to do this for a faster check out process. Sure, it can be annoying to type all that information every time you want to buy something. But if the site ever gets compromised, your saved info might get stolen. I’d rather lose a few minutes typing my information again than deal with stopping credit card accounts and looking for identity theft.

Have Different, Strong Passwords for Each Site

Having a strong password for your accounts on shopping sites is already common advice. It helps prevent criminals from guessing your password and compromising your account. But it’s just as important that you have different passwords for each site. Data breaches of major companies have been happening more often. If your email and password get leaked in one of those breaches and you use the same email and password for another account on another site, that other account could be compromised too. You can bet that criminals will try those leaked credentials on other sites to see if they work.

Never Do Your Shopping on a Public Network

Public networks are not secure by definition, so any hacker can just connect to the network and intercept traffic. You don’t want to expose your financial information to that kind of security risk. Do your shopping on your own network at home and make sure you protect it with a strong password.

Get Your Package Shipped to Someplace Secure

When your package ships, pay attention to the tracking information (if you have it). Make sure someone is able to pick it up when gets to your place. Otherwise, it’s easy for thieves (often called “porch pirates”) to make off with your package if it’s just lying outside your door. If no one you trust can pick it up, you can ask the post office to hold it (if shipped by USPS) or ask the shipping company to ship it to a secure locker.

For Getting a Good Product/Price

Shop Around

This is probably the most useful (and obvious) advantage to online shopping. You can browse literally hundreds of similar products and do price comparisons. Though you may be tempted to buy from only one online shopping site for convenience (or for cheaper shipping costs), sometimes it pays to look at other sites for a better price. For example, when I was looking for my current smartphone, I initially thought to buy it on Amazon.com because I get better cash back rewards there. But when I looked at other sites, I found that I could save around $50 by buying it from BestBuy.com. Way better than any cash back savings I could have gotten from Amazon.com.

If you only have a basic idea of what you want, shopping online can also help you find a specific product. In this case, I usually just go to Google, type in the basic product description and either check the web results for articles that compare the best products, the “Images” results for ideas of what’s out there, or the “Shopping” results for a rough estimate of the price. Once you decide on a specific product, you can then go shop around for the best price on it.

Take Advantage of Seasonal Pricing

Buying things out-of-season or after certain holidays can often net you big savings. Companies usually stock up for certain events, and when those pass, they want to get rid of any extra inventory. This means cheaper prices for you. For example, there are often chocolate sales after Valentine’s Day. Other examples are fitness equipment and linens, which often go on sale in January.

Try Not to Buy Perishables

When you go to a supermarket, you usually can’t find any expired food products because they throw out anything that’s past its sell-by date. Unfortunately online retailers aren’t as prompt. This is especially true for large online retailers, like Amazon.com, where many third-party merchants sell their products. The products often sit in a warehouse where workers (or the merchant) might not check on them as often. As you can guess, this can result in an expired product being shipped to someone. Indeed, it’s happened to quite a few people. It’s best that you get perishable products directly from a supermarket (or the company that makes it).

Be Wary of Counterfeits

Another disadvantage of online shopping is that counterfeits are common and harder to spot. In a real store, the seller knows where the product is coming from and can ensure that they’re not counterfeits. But there’s not much stopping an online merchant from selling counterfeits for a quick buck. It’s also much more difficult to spot them visually before you buy. Heck, it might actually be impossible if the merchant just uses the official product images in the product description.

Online retailers are getting more serious about the problem. But for now, many are relying on the real companies to help them get rid of fakes, which isn’t always enough.

Some of the things you can do to avoid getting a counterfeit item are buying from reputable merchants, avoiding too-good-to-be-true deals, reading reviews of both the merchant and the product, and avoiding buying stuff from merchants in countries that often sell counterfeit products (especially China).

Read Reviews…Really!

Many people, including some I know, just look at the overall rating of the item (4.5 stars, okay) or just casually look at a few reviews (works great, okay) before buying something. However, you should really get into the habit of reading reviews thoroughly to minimize the chance of getting a lemon. Sure, short reviews like “great product, very satisfied” are easy to read, but they tell you next to nothing. These are some of the things to look for in reviews:

How easy is it to use? This is very useful (especially for things you’ll use often), since it’s hard to gauge just by looking at pictures. Also keep in mind your own usage case. For example, will something that’s easy to access for right-handed people be just as easy if you’re left-handed?
What are some problems with it? For just about every product, there are bound to be negative reviews. But the things you should focus on are the similarities between the negative reviews. If a particular issue keeps popping up in these reviews, it could indicate a fundamental flaw with the product.
How durable is it? Durability and length of usability are pretty high on my list of requirements. I want to know that a product can last a long time, especially if it’s expensive. I also want to know if any parts are prone to breaking (ex. plastic instead of metal joints).
How well do the features work? Things like electronics may list a lot of features. But if they don’t work well, you might want to find another product.
How responsive is the company? This might not be important for simple products. For more complex products like appliances or electronics, though, you definitely want to find out if the company’s customer service will respond to any questions you might have.

Beware of Fake Reviews

Reviews are indeed useful, but there are also plenty of fake reviews out there. These are usually written by people who didn’t even buy the product, people who were paid to write them, or by people who received a product for free in exchange for a favorable review. They skew the overall result and often drown out the real reviews. There are some tools that can help filter them out, such as ReviewMeta and FakeSpot, but I prefer to filter them out myself because they run on algorithms that can be tricked. These are some things to pay attention to in order to spot fake reviews:

very positive language that praises the company (often more than it talks about the product)
large number of reviews in a very short time period (within a few days), especially for a brand you’ve never heard of
reviewers who post reviews on many products in a single day, especially if they’re all functionally similar products (who buys 20 different pairs of sunglasses?)
many bad reviews in a short amount of time (could be a sign of review sabotage by a rival company)
broken language (sounds like it was written by a machine)

Online Shopping Tips for Specific Sites

In addition to the online shopping tips above, there are some additional ones I can provide for specific sites. These next tips are for the two shopping sites I have the most experience with: eBay.com and Amazon.com.

eBay.com

Note the Item’s Location

The product listings for eBay always have the location of the item. It’s important for counterfeit detection. For example, when buying hard-to-find collectibles, I never buy something that comes from China as a rule of thumb. Many companies in China thrive on producing counterfeits, and I don’t trust the seller to be able to discern genuine products from fake ones. You don’t want to get suckered into paying a lot of money for something worthless and costly (or maybe even impossible) to return.

The location of the product is also important for estimating the time it takes to arrive. Products within the US usually come within a week, while things from overseas usually take at least 1 or 2 weeks to arrive. If you’re doing some last-minute gift shopping, you should take this into account to ensure you get the item on time.

Try to Buy Things from Official Retailers First

There’s a certain evil type of seller on eBay known colloquially as a “scalper”. These scalpers buy up things that might be hard to find and then sell them for vastly inflated prices. I’m sure these kinds of sellers show up elsewhere, but I find them most often on eBay. You should always try to buy something from an official retailer before resorting to eBay. Only buy something from a scalper if you absolutely must have that item and can’t find it anywhere else. Even then, I would suggest that you wait a while before buying in case the price drops.

Do Your Research Elsewhere

The items on eBay often don’t have reviews. That’s because most sellers only have a few (or maybe even just one) of a product to sell. It’s just something you have to deal with. Do your product research somewhere else and then look on eBay once you know exactly what item you’re looking for.

Make Sure the Item Is Exactly What You Want

The listings on eBay sometimes aren’t specific enough. I’ve encountered a few situations where the edition of an item wasn’t listed, and I had to find out by scrutinizing the product photos very carefully. Other times, it was difficult to find specific details on certain products, such as what’s worn/damaged on used goods. If you’re not sure about something, you can always contact the seller for specific details. It sure beats buying something you don’t want and having to deal with return shipping and possibly a restocking fee.

Use the Watchlist Feature

One thing I found rather unique about eBay is that the prices are often fluid. An item can increase or decrease in price without warning. If you’re not in a hurry to buy, use the “Add to Watchlist” feature to get a notification when the price drops. If something drops to an attractive price, you’ll be among the first to know and be able to snag it before someone else does.

Amazon.com

Check for Supplier Changes

Some Amazon merchants will sometimes change their suppliers. This can lead to either an increase or decrease in product quality. In addition to helping spot fake reviews, sorting the reviews by “Most recent” can help you identify this change. On recent example I can think of was a product that originally had metal screws and bolts but recently switched to using plastic pins. Needless to say, the newer reviewers didn’t like the change too much. Always check to see if there’s been a supplier change before you buy.

Reviews May Reflect Products from Different Merchants

Often, there are several merchants for a particular product. However, the reviews don’t distinguish which merchant’s product the review is for. For example, one review could say that the product is terrible because the merchant didn’t ship it properly, and it arrived broken. But the other merchants on the product listing might be handling their products correctly. In this case, the bad review doesn’t reflect the products from the other sellers, but all the reviews are still lumped together in the same product listing. Unless the reviewer specifically says which merchant he or she got the item from, you’re going to have to make the call yourself whether a problem is a seller issue or a product issue.

“Verified Purchase” Doesn’t Mean It’s a Real Review

One of the ways Amazon has tried to improve the review system was to include a “Verified Purchase” label for reviews where the reviewer actually bought the product. But just because it has this label doesn’t mean it’s not a fake review. There are some companies that reimburse a reviewer for the product or offer some other incentive in exchange for a favorable review.

Check the List of Sellers Page

It’s a bit difficult to find, but it has some information that isn’t available elsewhere. You can find this page by looking for “New (& Used) (number of sellers) from (price)” near the end of the product description or in the sidebar with the “Add to Cart” and “Buy Now” options (right side of screen). Clicking on this link will show you a list of sellers for the product. The list also displays where that seller ships it from (sometimes), its condition (either new or varying conditions if used), and sometimes additional information about its shipping process. These might help you make your decision.

In addition, Amazon doesn’t always show the best price from that list for its product listing. It prioritizes the merchants whose products have the “FULFILLMENT BY AMAZON” label. While that may be a plus to some people, it’s not always the lowest price you can get.