The year has barely rolled out its carpet, and Valentine is already making a grand entrance. Next thing you know, we have birthdays lined up, then baby showers, anniversaries, Mother’s Day, the list goes on. It feels like we’re yet to recover from the holiday season’s shopping craze to take on more frustratingly long queues, store hopping, scheduled times, and sold-out moments. Not to mention having to dress up and drive around for hours on end only to go through all that. We’re calling it- traditional shopping is hands down one of the greatest pains of all times! So, if there’s one thing we’re forever grateful for, it’s online shopping. Being able to get house supplies, shop your favorite merch, and restock on inventory with just one click has got to be the ultimate game-changer. For the most part, consumers today are leaning more and more into online purchases, so retailers are setting up online store websites and applications to keep up.
Four tips to improve your online shopping experience
Online shopping has revolutionized the purchase experience; Simultaneously, there remains a fraction of the consumer population that prefers physically walking into the store to buy electronics or weekly groceries. We’re not taking jabs; when an online shopping experience leaves a bad taste in your mouth or the website prompts are a little too complex to nail, the hesitance is quite understandable. That said, we’ve put together four tried and tested tips to smooth out online shopping for you.
Apps and extensions
Government-issued health restrictions are synonymous with the global pandemic outbreak. While the traditional physical interaction between retailers, entrepreneurs, and consumers is set to stay limited well into the foreseeable future, virtual trading isn’t. Traders are now establishing an online presence to revive and boost sales and diversify their reach through mobile applications and website extensions. Installing the web extensions and online store applications into your phone lets you shop on the move, saving you the trip. The best part Carrot’s web extension provides in-store sales, discounts, gift cards, and promo codes to newbies and loyal customers for a great steal.
Bargain hunts
Previously, bagging the best shopping deals looked a lot like a store-to-store trip. Well, it doesn’t have to be as tedious anymore. With numerous websites, search engines, and applications developed to compare product prices, you can now watch for the best bargains from your phone. Load up various tabs on your screen and check out the available offers from your retailer and third-party sites. Better yet, subscribe to get notified when the prices get slashed. Don’t just settle on the first deal you spot; shop around for better. Additionally, you can utilize coupons and promo codes to get some extra bucks off your loot. Ally Michaels who runs her own online store has a great tip too: before completing a purchase you can fill the cart and then close the tab before paying. In many cases, the website will then after a number of hours email you letting you know you left something in your cart and offering a discount for you to complete the purchase!
Cookies and filters
You’ve probably spotted cookies prompts while browsing through your favorite online store and absently declined them. Cookies are designed to optimize your shopping experience through your previous search history in less technical terms. The website tunes your search findings and suggestions to match your interest when your cookies are enabled. On the other hand, filters come illustrated as icons on shopping websites and applications; by inputting your preferred specifications in the filter option, the website automatically finetunes your search results from the pool of available options to a selected few; this streamlines your shopping experience.
Return policies
While you can put back items on the shelf when shopping in the store, online purchases work a little differently. Return policies are codes put in place by the seller to facilitate the exchange and restitution of items once sold. Dissatisfaction isn’t uncommon in trade; therefore, it’s best to go through the retailer’s return policy to fully disclose the accepted liability and avoid a dispute over the irreversible purchase of a product.
Conclusion
The internet has completely shifted the paradigm in more than one life facet, from education, travel, science to communication and now shopping. Undoubtedly, online shopping platforms are the ultimate merge of convenience and efficiency in today’s trading world. However, it’s getting difficult to keep up with a gazillion things popping up in the tech world and thousands of how-to blog posts cracking these trends. But, hey, we all love ourselves a good deal, and online shopping happens to save us a trip, so why not? If there’s anything this global pandemic has revealed to us, it’s the impact of technology in our lives. All these tips, tricks, and tools stereotypically tied to the millennials and Gen Z aren’t so vain, so maybe it’s time we learned our way around them because it looks like they’re here to stay.