Online Shopping Tips That Can Save Your Money

Online shopping industry has seen one of the most highest surge in recent times across the globe. With a wide range of e-commerce websites available and easy access to them through our mobile phones, laptops, tablets etc., consumers can buy anything and everything at their comfort without the actual hassle of driving to the store, finding a parking lot, walking through the store to find the products and often need to stand in long queues at the cash register.

Shopping through e-commerce platforms helps consumers avoid these disadvantages. With online shopping, a person logs onto the Internet, visits the store’s website, and chooses the items she desires. The items are held in a virtual shopping cart until she is ready to make her purchase. The shopper can remain in her pajamas as she does her shopping, and the process can be conducted in the wee hours of the morning or late into the night. Online stores never close – they’re open 24 hours a day.

· Online shopping is expanding so fast that the market size is expected to hit 4 trillion in year 2020.

· The countries with leading average eCommerce revenue per shoppers are: USA ($1,804), UK ($1,629), Sweden ($1,446), France ($1,228), Germany ($1,064), Japan ($968), Spain ($849), China ($626), Russia ($396), and Brazil ($350).

Shocking Growth of Shopping Apps in Pandemic [2020 Stats]

The State of Growth of Shopping App Marketing 2020 reports that a mobilemarketing analytics and attribution platform, notes that India witnessed about a 250% increase in non-organic growth of shopping apps install during the strictlockdown period running from March. It shows that generally peopl…

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· Atleast 67% of users admit to the fact that they use e-commerce websites to window shopping while idle on their smartphones.

· 60% of consumers have used Chatbots to find answers to their queries while shopping online.

Thus, it can be observed that online shopping has become a worldwide trend these days and in order to master the art of online shopping, here are some tips and tricks that you must know.

Leave items in your online shopping cart:

The most common and widely used method to save some bucks while shopping online is to select the items and add it to your shopping basket or cart and then leave it there for a day or two. This way, you can avoid impulsive purchase and the retailer will try to retain you by sending coupons and better prices on the next day. keep in mind that you have an account on the merchant's website and you are logged in when you leave your cart.

Shop on the right days

A number of online stores roll out certain discounts and offers on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. It is also noted that Sunday is the best day to book cheap airline ticket while Monday is the most expensive day. Thus, even a Sunday afternoon lures you to shop your favourite dress, resist yourself till Wednesday for the best deals. Tuesday is the best day to purchase laptop and desktop computers as major retailers like Dell Home and Hewlett-Packard send out special coupons every Tuesday.

How Has Technology Changed Shopping

With the release of Covid-19 rules and regulations worldwide, many consumers and buyers are concerned about the safety of store visits. These are some examples of technology providers offering great solutions to improve social distance and improve buyer safety during this Covid-19.

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Analyse the dynamic pricing before shopping

Dynamic pricing is the online strategy used by merchants to show different prices to different customers  according to your location, your browsing and spending patterns and current demand of the product. For example: If you have searched for a laptop online and the next day when you visit the website, the price of the product shoots upto 30%. This is a part of dynamic pricing which tricks you into buying the expensive deal.

To beat dynamic pricing you must:

· Log out of your accounts (email, Facebook etc.)

· Clear your browsing history and cookies in particular

· Switch to incognito mode to visit the website

· Use a VPN for clear slate

· Choose less developed countries as home to get better prices

Chatbots for price adjustments

An AI chatbot is nothing but a software that engages the customer in conversations and provides rather specific answers to their immediate queries. The companies mainly make use of chat bots so they can increase their online sales.

How AI Chatbot Increases Sales/ Sales Boost by AI Chatbot

Artificial intelligence chatbots mainly distinguish themselves from other chatbots by their ability to understand the intentions behind the customer’s questions. Chatbots provide the precise information customers are looking for.

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You can use Chatbots with everything such as  extending the date for a coupon, getting exclusive discounts that aren’t advertised, honor a price-match policy, and more. Also, 24x7 availability of someone behind the screen, only if these conditions are fulfilled they will stay with you and keep engaging.

Purchase electronics when a new or competitor's product launches

An important trick before buying electronic gadgets, you should time them with product price drops for amazing deals. Electronic items are often sold at lower prices when the dealers need to clear inventory for new launches.

For example: If Samsung launches a new smartphone, you can compare the price with its rival company Oppo or Vivo to get the best deals.

Seek price-drop refunds

Suppose you bought a product and the very next day there is a sale on the same product, this can be annoying. In order to seek the price drop refund you can contact the retailer directly, some companies will refund you the price difference. Also, some credit cards provide price protection, you will get the difference price if the price drops, no matter where you shopped.

Smart reward programs

Some online shopping websites offer smart reward programs by doing some tasks such as by doing paid online surveys or merely browsing around product catalogs that can be exchanged to gift cards or special discounts. Some sites also offer points for simply watching videos and then you can redeem them as discounts from different online sites.

Out of season shopping

You can buy your woolen garments or seasonal furniture and seasonal decors during the after-season and post-holiday blowout sales as merchants may need to clear stock for next season’s items, you’ll score steep discounts and no one will know that it’s from last season, which definitely doesn’t exist when it comes to Christmas trees and outdoor tables.

Compare price online before shopping

In order to score the best deal out of a wide range of products, you can run smart price comparison checks through various tools such as Pricelink browser add-on, this will save your time by automatically comparing prices of the same product from different merchants. You can also know if there are some coupons available.