Sneaky inside tips for shopping online…
Funny, 10 years ago, only 6% of us dared shop online. This year, they estimate over 85% of Americans will buy at least one thing online for the holidays. For agoraphobics like yours truly, we’ll do the entire holidays cyber-style.
Here’s some suggestions:
Never, ever pay shipping! Nearly every major retailer is offering free-bee shipping on orders over a certain amount. If that’s more than you want to spend, I strongly suggest using this:
Amazon Prime: get a free 30 day trial and everything ships to your house in 2 days! Be sure to click the “do not auto-renew” button and you don’t have to worry about cancelling it.
FreeShipping.org will find you free shipping codes and offers available at thousands of stores online.
On December 17, dozens of online sites will be participating in Free Shipping Day and will have guaranteed delivery by Christmas Eve. You can find out more and see which stores are participating here.
Best search engines for pricing and finding your goods?
Good Housekeeping voted PriceGrabber.com as number one for it’s speed and accuracy. Shopzilla.com/BizRate.com and NextTag.com come in for honorable mentions.
And if you’re hard-core, or do a lot of business online, consider this: Smartswipe.ca. It attaches to your USB port and you swipe your plastic there instead of entering numbers onto order sites. You don’t have to type anything, and all info is instantly encrypted and leaves nothing for cyberscum to steal. It’s a little spendy–about $100.00 but worth it if this involved your livelihood.
Shop on, my little cabbage, shop on!
