A few years ago shopping without leaving your house and having the items delivered to your home was almost unfathomable. More recently major brand labels were the only ones with online shopping sites. Today almost everyone offers online shopping alternatives.  Even small companies and boutiques are establishing their presence online. While all these online commerce sites makes our life easier there are people who would always try to take advantage of something good, therefore, we need to keep two things in mind:  avoiding fraudulent sites and how to find good deals online without being fooled. 

Here are some safety tips for online shoppers: 
1- Shop on trustworthy sites- Before you give your credit card number to any site be sure to do a little background check and read customer reviews. Simply type the name of the site with the word “review” following it into a search engine the most popular of course being Google and you should get quite a few results.  Of course, if there are a lot of negative reviews chances are you would not have a pleasant online shopping experience. 

2- Protect your personal information- Take a minute to read the sites privacy policy. Most sites place their privacy policy on the home page. Privacy policies inform you where and how your personal information would be used. Sites without a privacy policy should be steered clear of. Chances are they may sell sell your information to others without your permission. 

3- Confirm your online purchase is secure- According to BBB, “Always look in the address box for an “s” in “https://” and in the lower-right corner for the “lock” symbol before paying. If you have any doubts about a site, BBB recommends right-clicking anywhere on the page and selecting “Properties.” This will reveal the page’s real URL (website address) to ensure it matches the URL in the browser’s address bar. If they don’t match, you may have been directed to a fake, potentially dangerous website. “ 

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4- Pay with a credit card- You should never wire money to any site especially to people selling on personal site that you don’t know. Always use a credit card, that way you can use your dispute rights if there are any fraudulent or unauthorized charges on your card.Under the federal law customers have the right to dispute if an item is not delivered or if there are unauthorized charges on your card. 

5- Keep documentation of your order- This is one of the most crucial and important steps. Make sure to document your transaction when it is completed. Most sites may send an email confirmation. Be sure to save that email and print it just in case anything happens. Also, print the final confirmation page even if you get an e-mail confirmation. 

Now that you have some tips for making your online shopping experience a safe one, let’s get to the shopping! We all know that  Cyber Shopping is the ‘it’ thing to do now. Window shopping may soon be referred to as ‘old-fashioned’ soon. These days more people are heading online rather than facing the shopping crowd at malls and crammed roads. According to the National Retail Federation, Cyber Monday has official replaced Black Friday as the most popular holiday shopping day of the year. Last year, almost 96.5 million people shopped online while 79 millions rushed on the stores. Furthermore,Cyber Monday deals keep growing. It doesn’t stop on Cyber Monday. 

Follow these tips and find the best online deals and steals for the holiday season: 
1- Join the retailer’s e-mail list- If you have a store that you like or shop at often join their e-mail list. You usually are given heads up and receive the best deals and coupons. One retailer that is known for giving out the best deals and coupons through e-mails on urban style clothing ishttp://www.yrbnyc.com . 

2- Look for coupons- Trust me coupons help you save A LOT. There are many sites specifically created for the sole purpose of providing coups. Check them out, you never know what great deal you might end up finding. 

3- Make a Gift List- Well that’s the first part, the second part is stick to it! We often get carried away and end up buying what we did not set out to buy. Making  a list helps you to stay more focused. That’s why I like sites like http://www.nubianheritage.com. When I go to buy my organic skin products it’s so easy to navigate that I click on one tab and all the products that I’m looking for are right there. That way I don’t have to go through the whole site and try to resist the temptation to spend over my budget. 

4- Track Your Holiday Spending- Keeping track of how much you spend is very important. You don’t want to go over your budget and greet the New Year in debt. 

5- Search and search- Sometimes we just settle for the first site we find but there are sites that offer better deals than the popular sites. For instance it took me a while to find a cheap concert and event ticket site then after searching and searching I found http://www.charged.fm and I was pretty upset that I didn’t take the time to search before because I could have saved so much money in the past. 

6- Check the Return Policy- Sometimes you buy things and find better deals elsewhere. Make sure to check the return policy of the stores you shop from just in case you have to return the item later. 

There you have it, make your online shopping experience a safe, deal grabbing one and save yourself the hassle of big crowds, searching for parking and heading into stores only to find that what you set out to get is out of stock, great deals are only a click away!

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