6 Black Friday Online Shopping Tips and Hacks

Image Credit

 It’s not just November. Its black Friday too – and we are going to enjoy every moment of it.

To take advantage of the deals though, you must be proactive. Apart from hunting down the steals around the internet, what are some hacks to get the most out of this shopping festival? Follow these tips to make this a November to remember!

1 Sign up beforehand

Don’t wait till the day of the deals to get your accounts on retailers’ ecommerce websites. First, the site might be jammed on the day, and second, with an account set up you’ll be the first to receive deal alerts and emails once prices drop. Sometimes companies even give out members-only discounts, so that’s another incentive to join the club sooner rather than later.

2 Compare prices

You already know what you want to get for a discounted price, so this is the time to browse and compare their discounted prices to avoid getting ripped off.

Compare prices between multi-brand resellers and the brand’s own e-commerce site, and local versus international sites to be sure that you’re getting your favorite items in the best prices. Sometimes brands list their product in drastically different rates in different regions. In most cases, a product from an American brand will be cheaper in the States than it is in your country. Get it from the American retailer on Amazon. You might have to pay extra shipping fees, but if after the surcharge it’s still cheaper than your local listing, ship it! You might have to wait a few days longer, but the price cut is worth it.

3 Use price matching

To take price comparison one step further, price match your products after you’ve paid.

With price matching, your vendor will match the price listed by another vendor and refund you the difference if the product is completely identical. This will come in handy if you only found out after you’ve paid that the item is sold cheaper elsewhere.

Brands like Best Buy, among others, operate on this type of model.

4 Set a budget

Seeing the price slashes everywhere on the internet, you might get carried away filling your electronic shopping cart with item after item you don’t really need.

More than just knowing just what you plan to buy, it is also great practice to know just how much you plan to spend. Don’t go for something that is heavily discounted if it happens to fall outside your budget. The deals are not worth the financial stress you’ll be getting yourself into.

5 Avoid ‘derivative’ items

The reason why many suppliers can offer a massive discount on their products during black Friday sales is because they are not selling the same thing to you – even though they are passing it off as the same.

This is usually a problem with electronic items which would be made with sub-par materials under the hood. It also happens with accessories, clothing, and just about any other item. The best way to combat this would be to check the model number of the products you were expecting and the one you got.

6 Stay safe

While it’s a golden opportunity for you to land deals, it’s also one for hackers all around the world. With the large volumes of ecommerce transactions that will be going on, you best believe hackers all around the world will be ready to capture their fair share of literal ‘steals’!

To keep your data safe, you might want to consider using a VPN to secure your payments online, since you’ll be spending on a few different sites that you’ve probably never shopped at. Although most trusted e-shops are encrypted and secure, meaning that malicious third-parties cannot intercept your internet traffic to steal your card information, it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Don’t risk losing your bank details and account information for a few bucks off! To keep your data safe, you might want to consider using a VPN to secure your payments online.

In the spirit of deals, you can take advantage of the Black Friday discount for VPNs to get an even better deal on your internet security.