Savings is the name of the game whenever and wherever you shop. Talking about the good old methods of saving while shopping would probably bring about nostalgic scenes of the vociferous bargaining at the shop, the friendly salesman who used to know your needs and budget by recognition and recommend the best cost saving deal for you and many such good old tales.
However that was then. With the advent, popularization of online shopping these tactics of saving money while shopping have become limited instances. Online shopping is preferred by the people in the hurried times of today largely because of the ease they bring in to the process of shopping with home deliveries, cash on delivery options and other laze inducing features.
But since while shopping online you can’t bargain or have the friendly salesman point and recommend the best deal for you, saving money while shopping online definitely becomes a task that needs some thought.
Towards the very same, these conventional and not so conventional money saving efforts for online shopping can come in handy.
Conventional ways of saving money on online shopping:
1. Coupon Search: Getting a discount on what you shop for is one of the oldest tricks in shopping to save some money. While shopping offline this used to come through the bargains, online it comes through the coupons. While a number of people are lazy to look through them because of the abundance they appear on the web today and more so because of the distrust that has come attached to the coupon ads, appropriate coupons do help you save at least 10% to 20% off on your buy, so hunting for coupons is always a good start.
2. Comparison shopping: With the growth of e-commerce and the online marketplaces, there has been a proportionate growth in the number of supporting platforms for online shopping in the form of comparison shopping platforms. Now does going to a comparison shopping platform help you save. Not exactly because the abundance of information often would leave you dazed. To save money by using a comparison shopping platform:
- Know your needs and budget
- Utilize product comparison to get to the products which would suit your needs
- Since price is a vital buying parameter, then on go for price comparison on the platform to find out where would the product suiting your needs be available at the lowest prices.
While comparison shopping platforms like MyPriceIndia, Junglee are good bets when researching online prices, comparison platforms like FindYogi, Smartprix can be used when you want to find the product that would suit your needs and thus save you money which might be wasted on something you do not need.
3. 0 % EMIs: While people might argue that EMIs hardly save money considering you anyways end up paying the same amount which you would have to pay in one shot, EMIs actually save money because when you pay on installments for something you have bought, you are in essence saving a particular amount of money which you could utilize for that month in something else. And at the end of the day isn’t saving money all about having money which you did not spend at one go, in your wallets for the day. A note of caution though, do look through the EMI terms to make sure it’s a 0% EMI option, else you might just end up paying more than the price of the product.
4. Customer loyalty cards: A number of online shopping places and e-commerce platforms offer loyalty cards which can be redeemed in favor of discounts or rewards. A very secure way of saving money is through these cards, because in essence these come from the platform wherein you shop and as such trust issues can be taken lightly.
Unconventional ways of saving money on online shopping:
1. Know your needs: While shopping offline even if you are not sure of exactly what you need, you can find help with the sales person. However with online shopping that is hardly the case. What you order is what you get. A majority of online shoppers often make a bad investment and lose money by buying things which weren’t in the first place their need. And let us face it, that is bound to happen with the infinite number of choices you have online. A simple way to avoid losing money and saving your precious money is by knowing your needs and whether the product you are buying is actually what you need.
2. Decide within the community: Don’t get swayed by the zillions of eCommerce sites, marketplaces, comparison platforms. Find, select, approach and decide with your community on the need-product fit which is best for you. There are a number of places you can reach out to a community like with decide quick.
3. Find out if you really need to shop online: While online shopping does bring its fair share of easy options, however the one thing remains that you might not need to shop online for a few needs. For instance if it is a toothbrush you need, going to the neighborhood store would be better, with the few calories lost and a cheaper option rather than ordering online wherein the product comes after a few days at the least (won’t you brush for those days).The point is shop online when its feasible else it might just waste your money and you end up not making any saving anyways.
All in all while this one might not seem like the conventional guide to saving money while shopping online it definitely is about sensible ways to use your money while taking on online shopping, and as the experts say, a sensible investment is always the first way to save your money.
