I love online shopping! Whoever invented it is a genius. Online shopping is fast and convenient, especially for those who live in the middle of nowhere like I do. (Seriously, the closest decent shopping is about 3 hours away.)
Plus, online shopping actually helps me avoid some of the temptations I usually fall for in a shopping mall, like the cookie shop and the shoe section of the department store. J
Even with all those awesome benefits, there’s still one more thing that outshines the rest about online shopping – all of the great ways to save money by shopping online. Here are some of the ways I save money when I’m shopping online.
Buy High Quality, Used Items
I’m a sucker for name brand and designer things, but I don’t always have the budget to buy them all new. So sometimes I fake it buy buying gently used designer items instead. For example, this is how I get designer handbags at a discount.
There are tons of websites that sell used items, but ebay.com and thredup.com are my two favorites. (You do have to be careful about fake designer items on ebay, so make sure you know what you are buying.)
Shop Wholesale
Another strategy to help you save when shopping online is to shop at wholesale websites and cheapie dress sites. Wholesale websites sell items directly to you before they are marked up to a retail price. This can save you between 20-50% or more on many household items, clothing, décor, and more.
Search for Coupons
The easiest thing I do to save money when I’m shopping online is to search for coupons and coupon codes. With a little effort, and maybe some help from Coupon Sherpa, you should have no trouble finding online coupons from Amazon, most popular brick-and-mortar retail outlets, and a plethora of other establishments. After I add all the items to my shopping cart, I simply open another internet tab and search “Store Name Coupons” or “Store Name Sales” or even “Store Name Free Shipping.” More often than not, these turn up a coupon that saves me at least a few dollars on something I was going to buy anyway.
Price Compare
One of my favorite ways to save money at the grocery store is to price compare between stores and the ads they send in the mail every week. The reason I shop at the grocery store I do is because they have a great price matching policy that allows me to get the best price without having to drive to another store. This also saves me time, gas, and wear and tear on my car.
The internet is also a great place to price compare. Of course you can do it manually by looking at the same item on several different websites, but you can also use sites like pricewatch.com or shopify.com to help you watch the price of items you plan to buy anyway. They’ll notify you when there’s a sale that puts the item within your budget and they also check the prices on multiple websites.
The travel industry has made price comparing online a normal thing too. A few years ago there were only a few travel price comparison websites, but now there are hundreds of them to choose from. Using these price comparison sites to plan your next vacation is a must if you want to save money on your hotel, your flight, and more.
The internet is a great tool for many things, and shopping online is definitely one of them!
Do you save money by shopping online? What strategies do you use to save money when you are shopping online?
I am a fan of coupons so whenever I shop online, I use it after comparing prices to save some money. I don’t buy products or services without using coupons because I regret it later on upon seeing coupons that I might have used instead.