Beginner’s guide for Online Shopping

• Its very simple and easy to order sitting from home without travelling to the mall.
• There are some really good and safe sites.
• Ofcourse then the offers,discounts,sales.Who wants to pay full price when you can save couple of bucks right?
• From my personal experience I find more choices and availability of all sizes.
• Most sites deliver to your door step within 2-3 days.

• Check if the site is reliable.Ask your friends,family regarding the site feedback.
• There is a site called mouthshut.com which contains customer reviews for almost every site,every product,place,movie,electronics etc.Customers share their experiences and give their feedback.Go through few reviews to gauge if the site is good or not.
• Check Alexa rank by checking it on sites like statscrop.com or by downloading alexa toolbar from www.alexa.com. Alexa rank is a site ranking system from Amazon.The lower the numbers means the site is popular and recieves a lot of traffic.
• Call the customer care number listed on the site and ask your queries.
• Check the payment modes.Opt for Cash on delivery(COD) which is paying amount upon delivery.
• For Online Mode of payments, I would suggest keeping separate debit/credit card with minimum balance in the account.
• Register your card with Verified with Visa(VBV) or Mastercard Secure Code(MSC) through your online banking account.This is an additional security barrier for final confirmation of the order.
• For Internet Banking,keep secure passwords with combinations of letters and numbers.
• Change your Bank Credentials like ATM Pin, Passwords once in a while.
• Do not share your Bank Credentials to any Customer Care Representative even on their insistence.
• Do not save/store your Bank Credentials on your browser/computer.If your are using public computer,delete the browser history,cache and cookies.
• For International Shopping,use and pay sites partnered with Paypal only.
• Place a minimum value for the First order.
• Check for Shipping,Refund and Return Policy.
• Most sites are offering “Try and Buy” Service where you can open the package in front of the delivery boy,try and return on the spot if you are not satisfied.
• The shipping time will be mentioned on the site. For most of the sites is 2-5 days which is quite alright.
• Big players like Flipkart,Jabong, Ebay shell out mega bucks on marketing and promoting their sites.So that could be one small criteria to gauge.
• If you shopping on Ebay,Always check seller feedback score.
• Check for Privacy Policies,Terms of use on the site assuring customer privacy and credentials.
• Upon 2-3 orders you can judge if the site is good one or not.If there are any issues,you will know by then.
• Look out for cheap duplicates.Some sites sell fake brands.

• Sign up for Newsletter and Subscription.You get email and sms alerts on offers.
• Take advantage of Sales during Festive season-New year’s,Christmas,Diwali,Independence day,Republic Day, Dassera etc
• Google for discount coupons.Two sites I get my coupons from 27coupons.com and coupondunia.com.

These are tips and tricks from my own experiences.In future posts I will share website reviews.If you have any questions,just post in the comment section below.Hope this helps and Happy Shopping!