Sign Up for Price Alerts and Diligently Track Price Changes
You can actually pay less for products if you diligently track price fluctuations over time. Based on demand, inventory, and seasonal factors, prices of online products usually change quite often. If you track these changes closely enough, you can actually take advantage and make your purchases when prices are lowest. That helps you to maximize savings on purchases. In some instances, some e-commerce websites at times offer price match guarantees. This allows shoppers to claim a refund if the price drops shortly after they make a purchase. For best results, shoppers can rely on reputable price tracking tools like CamelCamelCamel or Honey to monitor price fluctuations. With these tools, anytime a product you’re interested in drops in price, you automatically receive an alert.
Always Lookout for Free Shipping Deals
While shopping online, shipping costs can add up quickly and often go unnoticed until the checkout stage. Always be on the lookout for free shipping offers to cut shopping costs. This is because many online retailers usually offer free shipping promotions at certain times of the year or after you meet a minimum order threshold. Taking advantage of these offers can help you save good money. If you are diligent enough, you can find free shipping codes online. You can also closely monitor websites like RetailMeNot and Honey. These websites often have updated lists of active discount codes. These codes can sometimes include free or reduced shipping options on some products. Checking these websites out before finalizing your online purchase can help you save on shipping costs.
Take Advantage of Cashback and Rewards Programs
Some popular e-commerce platforms at times partner with cashback and rewards programs to offer additional discounts to shoppers. These programs do give a percentage of their purchases back to shoppers as cash or points. Shoppers can accumulate these over time and redeem on future purchases as they choose. If however you choose to activate the cashback offer before shopping, you’ll automatically earn rewards with each purchase. If you shop with credit cards, some do offer cashback for shopping through their portals. You can take advantage of this by choosing to shop only with credit cards that have these special offers.
Occasionally Abandon Your Cart to Trigger Discounts
When online retailers are eager to close sales, they offer discounts and other incentives to persuade shoppers to complete their purchases. When retailers notice shoppers who have abandoned their shopping carts, some quickly send follow-up emails with discount offers to entice these shoppers to complete their purchases. This practice works especially well with websites where customers are already logged in or subscribed to their email list. So, if you commence shopping and you leave your shopping cart unattended for a day or two, it could result (but not guaranteed though) in special deals or discount codes being sent your way to entice you to complete your purchase. You can make a bit of savings from such offers.
Try to Buy in Bulk or Bundle Products
You can take advantage of the marketing cliché. “buy more, pay less.” This is yet another very effective money-saving strategy. So, if you buy items in bulk or take advantage of bundled product deals, you can actually pay less per item when compared to when you are buying singly. To sell more, many online retailers usually offer discounts when shoppers purchase larger quantities of a product. This usually engenders significant savings for bulk purchase shoppers. For most shoppers, bulk purchase is particularly useful for high consumption items like household essentials, toiletries or beauty products that require frequent purchase. You may in addition come across some websites that offer bundles where related products are packaged together at a lower overall cost than if bought separately. You can also take advantage of this type of packaging to save costs. If therefore you always try to opt for bulk purchases or bundles, you can actually save big on both the item price and potential shipping costs. But, always make sure you’re buying only items you actually need so as to avoid wasting money instead of saving it.
Take Advantage of End-of-Season Sales
Many online retailers occasionally embark on sales to clear up old inventory. These retailers often mark down products to make room for new inventory by offering significant discounts on old items that are still in great condition. So, smart shoppers can always take advantage of that if they plan their purchases around end-of-season-sales cycles. It is one of the best ways to save on e-commerce purchases by shopping out of season at periods of discounted sales at give-away prices. If you want to stay well informed about such sales, it is best to sign up for newsletters or follow your favorite retailers on social media. You’ll always be among the first to know since many online retailers usually announce these promotions through these channels. Since these offers usually last while stocks last, you can always act quickly to get ahead of other shoppers as soon as you get the right information.
Wrapping Up
The foregoing tips are essentially to help you save in your online shopping. Paying less for most if not all your e-commerce purchases is one great way to save money while shopping online. Whichever of these tips you feel like adopting, aim to be a smart shopper by paying less for your purchases. That ultimately results in significant savings as the bottom-line.
