Smart in Online Shopping

Online shopping has been so much more convenient nowadays and make me to refuse to be out of my flat to make purchases. However, there are few things you need to pay attention if you're new to online shopping.

Research
If possible, make a trip down to the brick-and-mortar shop to see the details of the product before buying it online to avoid buying the wrong item. Make a brief research and do comparison with few sites that sell the product you want to get the best deal. Take into consideration for freebies given by the shops too. Be careful with the price shown at online shop, in case there's hidden charge. Always check the final price to be charged to you.

Calculate shipping fee
Make sure you check the shipping fee before hitting the "Buy" button. If you're buying from overseas sites, the shipping fee may be even more expensive than what you're paying for the product itself. If that's the case, look for alternative way.  Most of the online shops offer free shipping within the country. Check vPOST website if you can get cheaper service from them. vPOST has representative offices in few countries. The alternative way is to ship the product to the vPOST office in that country where the online shop offers free shipping and get vPOST ships to you with lower shipping charge.Check http://www.vpost.com.sg/ for more details.

Review
If the shopping site has rating or review feature, use it to measure if the shop/site is reliable enough. Observe if the seller/site replies any question asked (if available). From the review you can also check the quality of the products. Sometimes, you can even check the size measurement for the clothes or shoes that you want to buy because it may vary in many countries. Check also number of transaction that the shop/site has handled. You can be more confident buying from sites with high volume of transactions.

Return Policy
Make sure to check if the site has return policy written and take some time to read it. If it's not stated in the website, try to contact the seller before shopping. Ask them what is their return policy like. This is especially for overseas purchase. You may need to pay huge amount of shipping fee to return the goods back to the seller.

Make use promotion code/coupon
Sign up for site's mailing list to be updated with upcoming promotion. Or if you can collect points or coupons from previous purchases, make use of it for your next purchase. Qoo10 gives you Qpoints when you confirm the order delivery and based on the amount you purchased (1% of your purchase, maximum 10 Qpoints per purchase) and Qstamps that you can exchange with discount coupons.