Online shopping is great! With virtually every possible store at your fingertips and the ability to find the exact product you want at a competitive price, there is no easier way to find just what you are looking for. And talk about convenience! By shopping online, you never have to leave the comfort of your home or office. Products are delivered right to your doorstep and in many cases you save even more money because there is no sales tax involved.
More and more people are shopping online than ever before. For 2006 it is predicted that sales generated from online purchases will exceed 211 billion dollars. According to shop.org, a popular association for online retailers, more than 1/3 of U.S. households shop online right now. By 2009, it is estimated that 40% of consumers within the United States will be “online shoppers”.
With the huge amount of potential business from online shoppers, it’s no wonder that just about every “brick and mortar” store has an associated internet store. Hundreds of large “online-only” stores exist too; filling specialty niches that make it possible to find really unique items as well as tremendous bargains. This is great news for us consumers because it gives us access to thousands of great, legitimate, online retailers where we can find everything we need and safely make our purchases. The downside to shopping online is that there are also thousands of internet stores that are designed to steal our money and perhaps never deliver the item we thought we purchased.
Just like in any large community, the internet has its share of honest businesses as well as dishonest ones. The key to safe and successful online shopping is in knowing where to shop and what to look for in order to tell the difference between a legitimate store and a dishonest one.
The most popular places to shop online tend to be at the online version of the “big name” stores like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Circuit City, Macys, Bloomingdales, PetsMart, etc… These stores are well known and also very safe. The best bargains however, are not generally found at the online version of the traditional retail store. If you want to find some really unique products at extremely competitive prices, and get free (or cheap) shipping – look for the big online discount, closeout and specialty merchants. These online retailers generally don’t have a chain of “brick and mortar” stores to maintain, enabling them to provide much lower prices due to lower overhead.
Some popular and safe choices for discount specialty shopping are Amazon.com (which sells everything – not just books), Overstock.com (home and garden, jewelry and electronics closeouts), eCost.com (closeouts, special purchases, and factory refurbished computer and electronic items), TigerDirect.com (computers and electronics), SierraTradingPost.com (closeouts on brand name outdoor apparel and shoes) and SportsmansGuide.com (deeply discounted sporting goods, clothing and shoes).
So how can you tell if an online store is safe? Look for an address and phone number on the store’s website; a legitimate business will not hide this information. During the checkout process, look for signs that the site is secure. Look for “https” within the checkout page website address – this indicates a secure and encrypted connection. You can also recognize a secure webpage by looking for a “lock” icon on the taskbar (usually on the lower portion of your web browser window.
If in doubt about an online store, do a quick Google search for the store name and the word “complaints” or “reviews”. This should produce a lot of information about people’s experience with the store. If you are uncomfortable entering your credit card information online, call the company and order via telephone.
There are many benefits to shopping online, and there is no reason you shouldn’t take advantage of this. As long as you use common sense and caution when shopping online, you should come out a winner!!!
Some of my favorite safe online stores where you can get some real bargains:
Overstock.com - Big discounts on everything!
Free Shipping w Select PC Purchase at TigerDirect
ECost - Buy the best in brand name electronics virtually AT COST!
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