Online Shopping Hacking Tricks
If you are like myself and the millions of other Americans who spend thousands online shopping each year. You could put a great deal of that cashback in your wallet by applying my top 10 online shopping hacks.
Below, I have compiled my top online shopping hacks that will put your hard-earned cash back into your pocket. Saving $500 a year or even more is attainable with my top 10 Online shopping hacks and tips.
Shopping Hack 1. Use Private Browsing Online
While browser and online retailer you would assume you are seeing the same prices for items as everyone else right? Well no actually that is not always the case.
Most retailers are collecting all sorts of different information about their customer's browsing habits. The only have to track yours with tools like cookies.
You probably already know that cookies are small files that are saved to your computer in the background while you are browsing the internet. These files that are saved to your computer monitor the sites that you visit and how your visit them. Such as what products you seem to be spending a lot of time viewing or searching for.
Retailers use this data to estimate how much you would likely be willing to pay for their products. So if your spending a lot of them bros wring for a certain item you may see the price is going up as a result of the retailers seeing that you are really into the item.
You can avoid this from happening to you by doing one of the following simple tricks.
Shop online while in an incognito window or private browsing feature of your browser. Incognito mode will block cookies and prevent this issue.
Use separate browsers for shopping and actually purchasing products.
Clear your cookies and browsing data with a browser extension like click and clean for chrome. This will erase all traces of you ever searching the items.
Shopping Hack 2. How To Hack Online Shopping Carts
One of the easiest ways to save money is by loading up your shopping cart on an online retailer and then just leave it there for a day or so.
I have done this with many online retailers such as Vitacost, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Macy’s.
However, this will not work if you are not registered with the retailer and signed into your account when you leave your items in the shopping cart.
Shopping Hack 3. Sign Up And Subscribe For Retailer Newsletters
Retailers often send out special coupons that give you large discounts to their email subscribers. This can be multiplied if you sign up more than once with multiple emails.
Shopping Hack 4. Coupon Codes To Save On Online Shopping
Some online retailers will allow you to use more than one coupon or promo code. If you do this strategically you can put a nice lump sum of cashback into your pocket. Tip: Use sites like Retailmenot.com to find coupons you may have missed otherwise.
An example of stack-able coupons would be something like a 20% off home items coupon and a $10 off your total order coupon. This is an easy but effective way to save on online shopping.
Shopping Hack 5. Use Cashback Sites To Hack Shopping Sites
This is a simple but yet very effective way to hack shopping sites. Cashback sites like Ebates and Befrugal will save you between 1% and 25%, on your purchase. The savings are usually closer to the lower end of that with an average saving is between 2 to 4%. However a few times I was shocked to find one of these sites offers 25% back of purchases at retailers I was about to purchase from. Talk about making your day!
The only problem is deciding which site to use. I will not go into detail about that here since I have already done so in the Top CashBack Site Guide which you should read if you have not already.
Shopping Hack 6. Request for Price-Drop Refunds
It is a little-known fact that retailers like Amazon, will refund the price difference of a price drop.
You must get in contact with their customer services within a reasonable period of time. You then can request a price-drop refund.
Amazon's current policy for price drops is 7 days from the delivery date for example.
Shopping Hack 7. Get Price Drop Refunds Automatically
My 7th saving hack makes my 6th tip really easy. I do not have the time to manually check to see if every item I purchase on Amazon does a price drop. So I am guessing you do not either. Luckily a tool exists called Paribus.
Paribus automatically checks your Amazon account and detects if a price drop has occurred, Plus if they will automatically request a refund on your behalf if a drop is found.
Shopping Hack 8. Stock Up During Clearance and Sales
Online retailers offer huge discounts to their clearance section of the store. Stock up on your favorite items while they are on sale. or clearance. Many retailers kind of hide their clearance items by setting up a clearance outlet separate from their main site.
Shopping Hack 9. Use a Cashrewards or Cash Back Credit Card
During my younger years, the frugal side of me would never let me go near a credit card. As far as I was concerned credit cards were nothing but useless just a debt trap.
I still feel this way about credit cards if you use them the way the credit card companies would like you to. However, this is not true if you chose a credit card with great cashback benefits and keep your bill paid so you never pay interest.
These cashback credit cards are much like the cashback sites in my 5th hack. They pay you back for shopping at certain stores or buying certain items such as gas or groceries.
You can expect anywhere between 1 and 6% cashback on all of your spending online or otherwise.
Tip: Stack cashback credit cards with cashback sites is one of my favorite online shopping hacking tricks.
Shopping Hack 10. Amazon Shopping Hacks: Subscribe and Save
Retailers like Amazon will offer you a discount on items if you order the item on subscribe and save. They offer 5% back for subscribing to one item and up to 15% for 5 items. PLUS FREE Shipping! Not the mention time an effort.
You have two ways to approach this. You can leave your subscription up and have Amazon automatically send you your items each month that you frequently buy. Such as everyday items like laundry detergent, shampoo, or dishwashing liquid for example,
Or you can change which items you would like to have Amazon send you. Amazon allows you to unsubscribe or skip shipping items anytime you want. As well as to add or take away items you are subscribed to. Subscribe and save is an easy let one of my favorite Amazon shopping hacks.
Tips to Save You $500-$1000 Guaranteed In 2017 Conclusion
Times are changing and we are doing more and more shopping online. As consumers, we must adjust to the new platform and useful tips and tricks like I mentioned above or waste countless cash. Taking time to do these tips may seem somewhat like a job. For the most part, you would be correct in assuming that. However please keep in mind saving money is making money. So at the end of the day saving money online is a job worth doing.
Living on the Cheap - Saving money tips
