Chapter 19

Going Shopping Online

Get ready to . . .

⇒ Search for Items

⇒ Find Price Comparisons

⇒ Verify If a Store is Trustworthy

⇒ Read Customer Reviews

⇒ Buy through Auction Sites

⇒ Find Coupons

⇒ Manage a Shopping Cart

⇒ Use Various Payment Methods

⇒ Understand Shipping Options

If you consider shopping fun, this chapter is for you. Shopping online offers the convenience of looking for what you need 24/7, as well as having items delivered right to your door. You can comparison shop to your heart’s delight, finding the best items at the best prices. You can also choose between a retail shopping experience and an online auction, which is kind of like browsing a big, virtual flea market.

Of course, you have to make sure you’re doing business with a reputable company that has policies that protect consumers. Online shopping also provides the opportunity to read reviews by other consumers to make sure that what you can’t see in person is what you want to get.

When you find what you want, you can also find discount coupons to save you money. Armed with your coupons, you can load products into your online shopping cart, arrange for payment, and choose your shipping method. If your purchase doesn’t pan out, you should also understand your return options.

In this chapter, you discover the ins and outs of becoming a very savvy online shopper.

Search for Items

There are so many products online and so many places where you can buy them that the process can be a bit overwhelming. Luckily you have several options for finding what you need when shopping online:

⇒ Use search engines. If you type a word or phrase on the Start screen and then click Internet Explorer, you’re taken online with results from the Bing search engine (see Figure 19-1). You can also open a browser such as Internet Explorer and enter a search term.

When you view search results, be aware that clicking any kind of sponsored results or ads could be a bit risky, as your activities or identity might be tracked. If you’re interested in a sponsored site, simply type the address in the browser address bar.

Figure 19-1

⇒ Browse retail sites. You can go to a site such as Amazon.com or Zappos.com and use the search feature at that retail site to search for products.

⇒ Tap into social sites. Some social sites such as Facebook allow you to include your friends in your search. By letting your friends know what you’re looking for, you can get recommendations of great online stores and wonderful items you might want to buy.

Compare Prices

One of the great features of shopping online is the ability to comparison shop. Not only can you compare the price of an item by visiting two or three online stores without having to drive around town; you can also use comparison tools on sites such as www.pricegrabber.com, www.nextag.com, www.bizrate.com, www.pricewatch.com, and http://price.com that search the Internet for the best prices among hundreds of stores.

Sites such as Nextag.com, shown in Figure 19-2, can provide lots of information, such as whether items are in stock at various vendors, customer ratings, any special offers such as free shipping or discounts, and related items. You can go to a particular store using handy links, such as the See Store button at Nextag.com.

Figure 19-2

Verify If a Store is Trustworthy

Before you buy anything on a site, it’s a good idea to assess if that store is trustworthy. There are several ways to do this:

⇒ Check out the free Better Business Bureau (www.bbb.org) or Online Business Bureau (www.onlinebusinessbureau.com), or visit paid sites such as Angie’s List (www.angieslist.com), shown in Figure 19-3, for complaints against or rankings of online stores.

⇒ Read customer reviews on the store’s own site; some product reviews include comments about the service and ethical behavior of the business itself.

⇒ When you purchase an item, be sure that the prefix https shows in your browser’s address field. The s in https ensures that the store is using technology that protects your payment information such as credit card numbers from prying eyes.

Figure 19-3

⇒ Do business with a store you know from the bricks-and-mortar world. If you’ve been a customer of a store such as Sears or Macy’s in the offline world, expect to find similar efficiency, ethics, and customer service in its online store.

⇒ Locate and read privacy policies. A site may give you a good deal, but may be data mining your private information and selling it to other companies. Data mining is a practice whereby a website takes many pieces of information about you, from your address, to your shopping habits, health conditions, or clothing size and sells that information to others who may or may not be trustworthy. Check privacy policies to make sure your information isn’t sold or shared with others.

If you check a free online organization such as BBB.com for complaints or reviews, remember that businesses pay to be members of such organizations. Paid services such as Angie’s List may cost you, but businesses have no control over how these sites rank them.

Read Customer Reviews

Customer reviews and expert rankings are good sources of information about the quality of products or services that you buy online. For example, on a retail site such as Amazon.com, shown in Figure 19-4, customers can post their ratings of products and a description of their experience with them. By reading these reviews, you can try to find customers who have similar taste to yours and weigh their reviews more heavily.

You can also find reviews from professional reviewers on sites such as CNET (www.cnet.com) for electronics and Consumer Reports (www.consumerreports.org) for reviews on a variety of products. These review sites may or may not get payments in the form of advertising from businesses, so check their credentials and credibility.

Figure 19-4

Buy through Auction Sites

Auction sites such as www.ebay.com or http://ebid.net allow you to name your price on products. The bidding process usually involves you becoming a member and providing information for a payment method such as a credit card or PayPal account. Remember that on an auction site you’re dealing with thousands of sellers, from individuals to small- or medium-size companies, and you have to be careful about checking the trustworthiness of a seller before completing a transaction.

Auction sites, such as eBay (see Figure 19-5), have placed different consumer protection regulations on their sites, so it’s worth reviewing their policies. In addition, many use a system whereby your payment is held until you verify that you received the merchandise and it’s in the condition described in the seller listing.

Figure 19-5

For more advice about buying or selling items using an auction site, check out eBay For Dummies, by Marsha Collier.

Find Coupons

Many of us have come to depend on paper coupons to get discounts at retail stores. Online, you can look for coupons that give you everything from free shipping to a percentage off your purchase price or a free gift.

You can visit coupon sites to search for discounts from online retailers and then enter the coupon codes into a field typically labeled Coupon or Discount Code when you check out (see the next task for more about checking out). Note that the effectiveness of these coupon codes varies, and most sites rank how often each coupon works.

Start by visiting some of these popular sites to get a sampling of discounts:

⇒ RetailMeNot

⇒ Google’s Offers

⇒ Groupon.com (see Figure 19-6)

⇒ FatWallet.com

Figure 19-6

Manage a Shopping Cart

When you shop at an online site, you typically use a mechanism called a shopping cart. Though it comes with different names on different sites, the idea is that you place items in this holding area. When you’re ready to check out, you open your shopping cart and enter payment and shipping information. You can see an example of a shopping cart on Amazon.com in Figure 19-7.

Figure 19-7

During the checkout process, you can also typically change your order, adding or deleting items, changing sizes or colors, and supplying both a billing and a shipping address, in case these differ. This is also the point at which you can enter coupon and discount codes (see the previous section).

You often have the option of saving payment information for future use on a retail site. This can be very convenient, and if you trust the site, probably poses no safety concerns. However, keep in mind that others who use your computer could use this saved payment information to make a purchase, so consider carefully whether you want to save such information.

Use Various Payment Methods

After you find the right item in a trustworthy online store, there are several ways to make payments online, including

⇒ Credit card: You can enter your credit card type (such as MasterCard or American Express), the credit card number, expiration date, and CVC, CSC or CVV (a credit card verification) code typically located on the back of your card to the right of the signature strip) to make a payment.

⇒ Check: Many sites allow you to enter a check number, bank account number, and routing number to pay by virtual check. Be especially careful to verify the trustworthiness of site before using this payment method, as giving away your bank account information offers no safety net if somebody steals the information, as using a credit card does.

⇒ Payment services: Services such as PayPal, shown in Figure 19-8, allow you to pay by various accounts such as credit cards, debit cards, or a check through a bank account. The huge benefit to these services is that the seller never sees your payment information.

Some sites ask you to create an account or use a guest login. If you think you’ll use the account often, consider creating an account. If you’ll use it only occasionally, it might be better to use a guest account to avoid providing some payment and personal information that will be stored or even shared with other sites.

Figure 19-8

Understand Shipping Options

When you purchase items online, consider how they’ll be shipped to you. The two key considerations here, as with many things in life, are time and money.

You can often find free or low-cost shipping offered by online retail sites. This free shipping may be based on a minimum purchase amount, but whatever the criteria, it’s worth looking for a site that ships items for free. Also, sites may or may not hit you with sales tax, depending on their locations and yours.

Most online retailers ship items to arrive in three to five business days. If time is a factor and you want expedited shipping, you’ll pay for it. Remember that the expedited shipping clock may not start ticking immediately; it may take a few days to process your order before it ships. Also, some items that are out of stock, or back ordered, may take weeks to ship, so your expedited shipping costs might be wasted. Read your order confirmation carefully to see if estimated shipping dates make expedited shipping worthwhile.

After you place an order most online sites offer a way to track its progress and estimated arrival date, sometimes via the carrier’s system such as FedEx or UPS.

Amazon Prime is an interesting fee-based shipping alternative offered by Amazon. You pay $79 per year for Amazon Prime, but for that fee you get free two-day shipping on all Prime-eligible items. Not every item on this giant retailer’s site is eligible, but enough are that you’ll probably pay for the yearly fee with just a few free, fast shipments. In addition, Amazon Prime offers access to thousands of free e-books and instant- streaming videos with the membership.

Remember that if you’re not satisfied with a product you order online, most sites don’t cover return shipping costs. If a piece of clothing doesn’t fit or a product doesn’t match its description, you may be out $10 or more in return shipping. If an item is defective, however, most reputable sites will pay for return shipping. You can check to see if the store you ordered from has brick-and-mortar stores; sometimes the local version of the store accepts returns of goods ordered online.