Shopping online is one of life’s great luxuries. You just click a few buttons and your items will appear on your front porch a couple of days later.
Unfortunately, online shopping is dogged by buyers’ remorse. You grab what you think is a great deal on a particular website, only to discover the same item going cheaper elsewhere a couple of weeks later. It’s infuriating.
Fortunately, you don’t have to be a victim. There are things you can do to find better deals online.
Shop On The Right Day
Don’t go shopping online at the start of the week or the weekend. Instead, focus on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.
Why?
Because brands tend to roll out deals on these days to get people hooked mid-week.
Alternatively, if you want even bigger discounts, then you can be patient and do all your shopping on Cyber Monday, Black Friday, Green Monday, and Amazon Prime Day. Just make sure that discounts aren’t being overhyped, as they were in 2021.
Get Around Dynamic Pricing
Dynamic pricing is perhaps the most annoying aspect of online shopping. It’s where online retailers hike the price you pay, based on your ZIP code. If you live in a rich area, they figure that you can spend more.
If you want to stop this, clear all your browsing history and cookies, and connect to shopping sites via a VPN. Where possible, locate the VPN in a poor neighborhood or change the server and see if it makes a difference to the price that you’re paying.
You can also browse in incognito mode. This way, your browser won’t save any cookies on your computer that the online retailer might use against you.
Grab Discount Codes
In the same way, online retailers know that there are some people out there who will only buy things from them if they offer them a discount.
Therefore, be sure to check Amazon coupon codes regularly to see whether you can apply them at the checkout when you use the site. More often than not, at least one of them will be valid, allowing you to get a substantial sum of money off any items you order.
Price Match
While online retailers will try to price gouge, consumers can hit back with price matching.
The way this works is actually pretty simple. All you do is hop on a major search engine, such as Google, hit the “Shopping” tab, and type in the product you’d like to buy. The service will then display all of the prices for that product from different vendors. You can then select the cheapest option.
Leave Items In Your Cart
Lastly, you might try leaving items in your cart once you select them. Some online retailers will send you a follow-up email with a coupon code, offering anything up to 20 percent off if you complete your purchase.
Just remember to be patient. Don’t impulse buy. Wait and see what happens. If the vendor doesn’t get back to you after a couple of days, then go ahead and complete your order.
