5 things to do before online shopping – You should know this

Most people love online shopping because of hassle free transactions and it saves a lot of time. But it has its own issues along with its unavoidable advantages. As you are purchasing from someone whom you never know and you are not being able to see the product directly. Whenever you are buying anything from top online store like Amazon, Flipkart and many more, you are actually buying from unknown seller who is actually selling their products through those sites. Performance of those sellers as well as the online stores always vary. So any wrong decision may lead you to poor shopping experience. You always should do 5 things before purchasing anything online to avoid this.

Check product image properly :

When you do online shopping that time you can not see that particular product in front of you. You only can see images of that product. Though seller uploads images of a particular item from a batch of same items. So you actually not seeing the same item what you are buying. That is why, you should also know the return policy when you are seeing a product images.

Product image is an important aspect when you shop fashion items like clothes, bags or home decor items etc. Many online stores (I think nowadays almost all stores) allow you to zoom in the images to check properly. So that you can get a visual understanding about the products quality.

Read product specifications carefully before online shopping:

Product specification is always an important things to read and understand whereas that product meets your expectation or not. If actual product is not similar as it is written then you can always claim for return or even ask for refund. You can take snapshot as a proof and appeal to consumer court.

Product research – Study product reviews :

If you are buying products or services online but not doing research properly on product or service then you may waste your hard earned money. You always should read all reviews from where you are buying, so that you can get correct feedback of that product as well as issues related to that particular seller. But in some cases those might be biased so you should follow product reviews posted on other reputed sites also.

Product review sites :

For electronic gadgets   – PhoneRadar | MouthShut | NDTV Gadget | ReviewCenter
For home & kitchen appliances  – ConsumerReports | BestForYourHome | ReviewCenter
For food & restaurants  – Zomato
For travel  – TripAdviser | MakeMyTrip
For personal care & others  – ReviewCenter

Though some of those are not exclusive review sites like makemytrip but as large number of users are using those sites so you can get proper review on those sites. If you are following other review sites and believe that those are honest and effective, then please share by leaving a comment here.

Know payment options :

Nowadays every online store offers multiple payment options to choose. Whenever you are buying something from a new eCommerce store, you always should prefer COD (Cash On Delivery) or mobile wallet (risk will be limited) to avoid fraudulent transaction or online scam.

Very popular payment option for online shopping are Internet Banking, Gift Card, Cash on Delivery and Wallet, Credit or Debit Cards (MasterCard, Visa, RuPay, American Express). Many online store also offer EMI schemes to their customers on selected products.

Most of these online stores offer exciting online offers & discount coupons, so you should compare prices of same product available on various online stores.

Read shipping policy :

Shipping efficiency always varies from sellers (within a store) to online stores (among the online stores).  The parameters you should check are expected delivery time of item by seller, shipping charges, sellers location, shipping partners or logistics partners.

I believe that all of you are following all those 5 things, if not then be alert and start following those things before your next online shopping.