Posts Tagged shopping online

Add-On Feature: Shop Online Faster, Safer and Cheaper with IE8 Add-Ons

This week we’re looking at how best to shop online. Consumer Direct offers two top tips for making the best out of your online shopping experience – they’re not too different from the rules you’d use normally on the high street:

  • Shop around – That great deal might well be on offer somewhere else – and cheaper.
  • Use retailers and services you know about and trust – or ones that have been personally recommended to you.

These two rules of thumb could be pure recommendations to take a look at the IE add-ons at http://ieaddons.com/gb/ . We’ve tried hard to make sure top household names are onboard developing IE add-ons that really enhance your online shopping experience – whatever site you’re  looking at. For example, Tesco have created their own webslice which is chock-full of special offers to give you the best deal.

Tescoshop safer with approved IE add-on

Ever find yourself at a shopping portal and think “I wonder what this would cost on eBay?’ Well… you’re in luck. With the IE eBay  accelerator you just highlight the text of the product you’re looking up and live eBay auctions will appear giving you an idea of how much you could save shopping on eBay for the same item.

eBay – shop faster with the eBay accelerator

If you enjoy going to your favourite shops online, but want to know you’re not paying over the odds then take a look at the Skinflint add-on which’ll be sure to save you money.

Skinflint – save money wherever you go with Skinflint

This week we’ve talked about online shopping, it’s popularity, pitfalls and the progress you can make shopping online with IE. There’s over 70 add-ons that build themselves into IE to make shopping faster, safer and cheaper wherever you’re looking online. http://ieaddons.com/gb/

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Tips for Shopping Online Safely

Imagine our disappointment at the Blue E when we heard one of our friends bought their sister a must-have GHD hair straightener only to find out they’d been scammed by one of the many GHD rip-off sites on the web. In fact, fake websites for this major household name are such a problem that GHD now have their own checker and sites such as Compare-GHD exist purely to find genuine straighteners. The worrying thing about this incident is that our team member had given their credit card details to an unscrupulous fake site and had to go through the hassle of cancelling their card.

We all enjoy shopping online, but must be careful about which sites we give our details to. Our friends at MSN have a great piece on Money Central looking at top tips for safely shopping online.  Their tips include:

  • Use only one credit card, with a low credit limit, for all your online purchases. That way it’s easy to see if there is a problem since you’ll know exactly for what and where the card was used.
  • Make all your internet purchases with a credit card. You can contest the charge if the item is not received or if it is returned.
  • You can shop online interest-free, especially at your favourite department or specialty stores, by using their gift cards. Load the gift card with a specific amount of money – you don’t pay any interest, and it limits impulse buying.
  • Always read product reviews using either Amazon or Epinions before ordering online. Research what other customers think about a certain product. Does it work well? What are the things that DON’T work well about this product? Does it do what it’s supposed to do? And, basically, is it worth the money?
  • There are tons of gift-quality items at great prices on eBay. But before doing anything, be sure to check out the seller’s feedback rating to make sure you won’t get ripped off.
  • Shop only at reputable sites. If an online merchant is new to you, research the company. Beware of merchants with bad reviews.
  • Make sure you only order on a secure server.

Take a look at the full piece here http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Savinganddebt/Finddealsonline/P102106.asp

Another good way to shop safely online from trusted sources is using IE add-ons, check back here on Friday for our top recommendations.

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