Internet shopping has become a very common way to shop and they have many benefits too. It allows consumers to save time and effort from making the purchase from the local shop down town. It helps save money, brings convenience to the shoppers as Internet stores allow visitors to shop 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Not only does it offer ease in the selection of items, online stores make it easier for buyers to compare product variety, features and prices. This way, it enables ordinary shoppers be more informed when making their purchase online and to get the best deal out of every purchase.
With so many online shops, who do you know which one you should shop from? Internet has many risks, so it is important for online shoppers to take several steps to make their shopping as safe as possible.
Here are 5 easy ways to look out for before deciding on making a purchase on an online store.
1. Appearance: When you surf into an online store, observe the ‘front store’, the overall presentation of the webpage. Check whether the webpage is professionally built, presentable and user friendly. Be mindful if you see an online store with non matching images or colors, prices seem too low, grammar & spelling mistakes and broken links.
2. Frequently Updated: Ask yourself whether the online store is regularly updated? Check to see whether the content and products are kept updated. Look at the footer of the homepage, normally there is a copyright remark with the stated year or period. Be critical if you see the year shown is beyond 2 years old,
3. Contactable & Response Time: One of the best ways to check whether if the online shop is still in business is to call them or email them and gauge them through the time they respond to you if at all. Be extra careful when a web store doesn’t offer a phone number. Which genuine merchants don’t want their customers to call
4. Trust Accreditation & Secure Payment Page: Observe whether there is a trust accreditation which means that they have registered with a program that insists on ethical dealings and that they have undergone audits and monitoring by a regulatory board. Be in a lookout for secured payment pages, you may want to be careful when entrusting your credit card details to a non-secure page.
5. Transparency: Check for their terms and policies are clearly spelled out and reasonable. Find out whether the prices stated are inclusive of delivery, handling charges and taxes.
There are many trustworthy online stores and there are also not so trustworthy ones too. Today, there are new ones mushrooming in the cyber world everyday. They offer almost everything a brick and mortar shop would offer and sometimes even more.
Make online shopping an enjoyable experience. Learn how it works and you will be rewarded with tremendous gains. The time flexibility and savings that are enjoyed by most online shoppers complements the demands of today’s fast paced lifestyle. It’s a shame to be left behind.
In conclusion, use these 5 easy ways as a guide to judge the credibility of an online store, ultimately, use your own intuition. If you feel uncomfortable placing your credit card details into an online store, then don’t. The golden rule is if you are suspicious or in doubt about any aspect of the shopping website, find another online store.