12 Tips on How to Save Money While Shopping Online this Festive Season

Flipkart Big Billion Day Sale, Amazon Great Indian Festival Sale, Snapdeal Unboxing Diwali Sale, are the popular online shopping festivals we have every year. No online shopper should miss the opportunity to save money while buying gifts for oneself or loved ones.

As shoppers who are used to shopping in local markets and malls all through the year and particularly during festive season must checkout the great sales and offers running to save money. Any smart shopper can save more money while shopping online than, waiting in queues to pay high prices and sweating. For shoppers in smaller cities and towns, sometimes the varieties and options are not even available at local stores.

Shopping Online – An Epitome of Convenience

Browsing through oodles of options, comparing products, looking for the cheapest option, etc. falls under online shopping and all of it can be done at the comfort of your home. But there’s so much hidden that could be unveiled only when one actively involves in seeking the deal he/she wants.

Here we have covered a wide ground of saving money online while shopping with these 14 amazing tips. Check them out!

1. Compare! Compare! Compare! : You might feel bad while ditching an offline retailer when you get a great deal somewhere else but doing so online won’t make you feel guilty.

Online shopping is a synonym of wide choice and thus, make sure to compare the price, discounts and other factors on other web portals too before hitting the checkout button. We compared few of the popular consumer electronics which consumers buy during festive season, and found that prices online are much cheaper online vs offline:

Hence by comparing the prices, we can clearly see that prices are much cheaper online than offline.

2. Catch a peek of International vendor with free shipping: International sites like Aliexpress offer popular mobile accessories, and other small nick nacks at highly discounted prices compared to prices we get on popular Indian e-commerce sites. But our word of caution is long delivery times.

Aliexpress is our favorite pick in case person wants to buy cheap under Rs.500 products, but only hitch with shopping at Aliexpress is the long wait time for delivery. We suggest shoppers to account for 3-4 weeks of delivery time, before getting swayed by their cheap prices. While they offer guaranteed delivery and refund money in case of no delivery, but long delivery period makes Aliexpress a bit avoid for new online shoppers.

3. Pick and Forget in the Cart: There are 40% chances that this tip might work. When you don’t have any deal, discount coupon or when no sales extravaganza is going on and if you like a product, don’t purchase it instantly. Add it to your cart and just sign out without making the purchase. If you are lucky enough, you might end up getting 4% to 5% discount more on the item(s) in your cart.

4. Bid adieu to your money in installments: Look for 0% EMI option on the website you are purchasing from?
It is better to opt for interest-free installments option rather than paying all at once through debit/credit card or cash on delivery. This festival season Flipkart Big billion Day Sale is planning to give easy installments on all big purchases, and thus offering a convenience which was until now limited to shopping appliances at neighbourhood electronic stores.

5. Choose the right day to login: India is a land of festivals. Big E-Commerce giants such as Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, ShopClues, etc. come up with oodles of festival and celebratory offers from time to time.

Sites like GoPaisa help you grab the best deal on the day through their deals section, or even better read on our next tip and you will save the most money.

6. Get the great deals from Subscription: Subscribe to the newsletters of GoPaisa, the only newsletter you will need to subscribe to during festive season. GoPaisa Newsletter will keep you updated with the latest offers and will make sure you don’t lose any offer while navigating through the wide jungle of online offers.

While newsletters of E-Commerce sites only update on their offer, but GoPaisa with its own team of experts and deal hunters keeps an eye on all such offers for you, and send you only the handpicked offers and weed out the junk offer just for you.

7. Go for Cashback Shopping:  This is where online shopping wins over offline shopping. While offline shops very rarely offer cashback options with credit card companies or bank. But Online shopping has its advantage with always on cashback offers.

We at GoPaisa offer you Flipkart Cashback, Amazon Cashback, Jabong Cashback, Paytm Cashback, Snapdeal Cashback and cashback at over 550 + other stores. You simply have to signup with us for free, and start shopping at your favorite shopping site through us, and we will guarantee you will save lots of money.

8. Look for Discount Coupons: So what if the brands don’t offer lucrative discount offers?

Cashback and coupons aggregation platforms such as GoPaisa can help you save a good amount of money by offering you a discount coupon, gift voucher, cashback offer on the e-tailer of your choice. Select from over 500 top e-stores of your choice and make your shopping a memorable savings experience. In fact users can also save while fulfilling their everyday needs such as mobile recharges, DTH services, etc.

9. Don’t lose heart, just complain if disappointed with a product or service:

Don’t compromise when you receive a defective product or product that is tampered with during transit. Lodge a complaint with the E-Commerce portal, while that should do it, but in case that does not help you tweet about the bad experience, leave a negative review on their Facebook page and inform the portal about the same on other social media channels as well. These efforts would help you in getting quickest possible resolution and also help the ecommerce company improve their service for good of all.

10. Ask Compensation for Failed or delayed Deliveries:

Perhaps you had to take a leave just to accept your order, or maybe because the delivery was supposed to be done a day before and the delivery team didn’t turn up. Or may, you had some other bitter experience while transacting from an online portal. In such a case, reach out to the concerned e-tailer and ask them to compensate for your loss. Most of them, to make up for your bad experience do give out discount vouchers, or discount coupons, exclusively for you.

11. Use reward points: Many online retailers have a tie-up with banks and other offline retailers and this association is fruitful for the buyers.

If during checkout you are asked whether you’d like to utilize your reward points, you must do it to get some extra discount on your shopping. Similarly, before checkout, the system may ask you to fill in your details so that the reward points can be e-mailed to you, please do it and make your shopping an earning experience.

12.The Online Offline Conundrum: In case you’re planning to buy an expensive product, try doing a survey offline and compare the prices and offers with those available online, and then take a decision.

Though a bit cumbersome, this will surely help you save your hard earned money to a great extent.

With Internet reaching most parts of the country, more and more people are turning towards e-shopping. Right from buying daily utilities to procuring electronics, furniture and even property, everything these days can be done via the internet.  

E-tailers these days make best efforts to lure customers by offering great deals, sales, discount coupons, etc. And quite like we do by bargaining while shopping offline, we can save a good amount via the online offers and discounts. One must still try and avoid unnecessary shopping as the schemes at times are so attractive that they are tough to resist.