Digital Content Manager Online shopping has become the most preferred mode for customers as it fosters high convenience and comfort. But there are certain factors that people must be aware of while shopping online otherwise, it might lead to serious consequences.
To help you in this, I’ve listed out the 8 most common online shopping mistakes so you can avoid falling into dangerous traps and ensure that you have a safe and secure online purchasing experience.
Ready to explore?
Let’s get started.
1. Avoid clicking suspicious links
Shopping sites use cookies to track your purchasing behavior so that they’ll get benefited by serving relevant products. On the other side, fraudsters will utilize this opportunity and might contact you via email by sending tempting offers.
Do not get trapped in it as scammers will collect all your personal information which results in a data breach. So when you receive an email from an unknown source, cross-verify it on different platforms or else simply ignore it.
Remember that you shouldn’t disclose any of your personal information or bank details on an unknown site that is not secure. Think twice or thrice before submitting information even to those shop owners with whom you make regular transactions.
2. Do not rely too much on reviews
I agree that reviews play a crucial role in your purchasing decision but relying completely on them is not a good practice. Because some shopping sites will genuinely allow for posting both negative and positive reviews, but others will influence consumers by posting fake reviews.
You can easily spot the fake reviews if they have the same repeated phrases, or there are only flattering reviews or reviews that appear to be scripted or manipulated. Beware of these factors as reviews are powerful tools in altering your buying decision.
3. Not giving attention to the return policy
Though online shopping saves a lot of time, there is a downside you must think of. Since we purchase via the internet, it is not possible to touch the products to get that tangible feeling.
In such cases, consumers should read the return policy to understand whether the shopping site will accept any damaged products to issue refunds.
So before hitting the “Place the order” button, spare some minutes to read the return policy. If it sounds appealing, continue with the purchase or else choose a better option.
4. Saving personal information for the comfort of transactions
To facilitate more transactions, retailers use different techniques to make the checkout process smooth and fast. We as consumers utilize this advantage and enter all our personal information which mainly includes our bank credentials like card number and CVV and save them.
Though the shopping site is secured and encrypted, hackers will break the chain and probe into the site. In this way, they’ll easily steal all your details and sell them for sale in illegal places.
So there is nothing wrong with spending a few minutes to manually entering your payment details rather than saving online which is strictly not advisable.
5. Using public Wifi
This is the most common mistake that many of us do. When we are roaming around with our peers and settling down at a restaurant or at a mall, the mobile data might load slowly. Immediately we tend to access these open Wifi networks for high-speed access.
Even in the worst scenario, I would suggest you avoid using public wifi as it is not encrypted with secure protocols. When you enter your password, debit/credit card numbers, those data will be open to all the hackers on the public network.
So do not process any transactions even if the shop owners force you to use the public wifi.
6. Not using credit cards
Credit cards are worthier than debit cards as they come with lots of cashback offers, and benefits. Many online shopping sites give tons of credit cards offers which saves lots of money. Besides, it also has strong fraud protection and offers a degree of isolation from your checkout.
So credit cards serve as essential for online shopping as you can earn more credits and rewards. Also when you use debit cards there is always a risk involved as those numbers might be stolen. For credit, it’s not possible as the credit card company will dig deep into the investigation.
But people who don’t have a credit card have no other means of using their debit card. They can wait for the amazing sale offers posted by the shopping site.
7. Spending lavishly on a product
The world of online shopping is humongous and we can instantly access it via our smartphones. The same product which is priced high on one site might be priced low on another. When you see your desired product is available for cheaper dollars on other similar sites after purchase, it feels heartbroken right?
You’ll feel sad for spending extravagantly on that particular product. To get rid of this, you can compare the buying product’s features and price on multiple shopping sites and come to a conclusion. This is worth spending your time on as it lets you make a meaningful purchase.
8. Blindly trusting unknown retailers
When you are about to make a purchase from a new retailer with whom you haven’t done any transactions, think for a minute. Type their company’s name in Google and look for what people are saying about them.
Also to get more confidence, you can try contacting their customer care and enquire about product’s details, warranty, return or refund policies. If you are satisfied with their answers and find them trustworthy, you can proceed. Otherwise, it’s a safe call to ignore them.
Final Thoughts
Online shopping sounds great but it turns out to be detrimental if you perform these above-mentioned mistakes. We don’t tend to do these mistakes intentionally but somewhere we lack focus and fall into online scams or traps.
You can definitely experience a safe shopping experience by strictly avoiding these common mistakes. The main job here is to investigate and perform deep research about the retailer and the product with whom you conduct transactions and also be aware of sharing potential information.
If these factors are under your control, then you can create a win-win situation in your online shopping. So bookmark this checklist and also share it with your loving peers and make them smart!
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