How to Save Money Online (10+ Best Ways to Smart Online Shopping)

Online shopping is easy. It’s becoming the new normal because of the current technology, trends & situation going on in the world. But while shopping online, have you ever missed the feeling of satisfaction of saving a few bucks after negotiating? While you can’t bargain on the internet, there are some hacks you can follow. Let us check out multiple tricks on how to save money online while shopping. But before we start, let us see how online and in-store shopping affects your shopping budget.

Online vs Store Shopping

Long gone are the days of stepping out of your house to go shopping. The e-commerce landscape has seen considerable growth, especially when the pandemic hit us in late 2019. In 2020 alone, online retail sales exceeded USD 4.2 trillion globally. Some of the benefits of online shopping are:

  • Shopping from the comfort of your couch
  • Getting the products delivered right to your doorstep
  • Scrolling through a variety of products without even visiting the store
  • Most importantly, saves time and effort
  • Can shop any time any day
  • Cost-effective with the availability of multiple deals and offers

There are a few advantages in-store shopping has over online shopping.

  • You can physically assess the product and check for possible defects
  • There’s no waiting period for the product to arrive
  • Shopping associates help the customers make better shopping decisions

How to Save Money Online While Shopping? 

Shopping online has become so successful that the big retail players like Walmart and Target are going virtual. From the year 2019 to 2021, Walmart’s US online sales saw a whopping $18.9 billion increase.

Online sellers these days are coming up with new ways to score big with buyers. However, if you want to save some of your hard-earned money by getting discounts, search no more. Here are a few ways you can follow to stay one step ahead of in-store shoppers and save bucks on online shopping.

Follow Coupon It Now!

The first thing I would suggest is to check out our website on regular basis. We have 500+ categories & more than 5 million deals available on our website. We have our very own in-house coupons stack which you can use to save your bills while shopping online. We have helped save more than 2 million USD across diverse categories. Check us out for up-to-date coupons and discounts for various categories.

Make Your Shopping List

This trick seems trivial but is extremely useful if you want to save money online. We often tend to get carried away seeing discounts like Buy 1 Get 1 Free!

Making a list will help you stick to your needs and stop you from shopping impulsively. Plus, following a shopping list will also ensure that we won’t miss buying an item.

Cross Check Prices Across Sites

Before hitting the checkout button, search through other retailers selling the same product. There’s a high possibility that the other seller is offering the same product for a discounted price.  There are also innumerable free browser extensions out there on the web to help you make smart shopping decisions and save money online while shopping.

Do you want to find products with lower prices and compare prices of the same product across sellers of the same website, or even across different websites? Do you want to know about offers on your desired product from any website? You name it, there’s an extension for it. Honey, camelcamelcamel, and PriceBlink to name a few.

Tip –  Beware of shipping charges. Few retailers offer the product at a lesser price but charge a shipping fee.

Free Shipping

One of the many benefits of online shopping is getting your shopping list delivered right at your doorstep, that too for zero shipping charges!  To encourage online shopping, most online retailers these days provide free shipping to their customers, irrespective of the location of delivery. However, some websites don’t charge for shipping when your bill exceeds a minimal amount.

Buy Membership

Look out for online sellers who provide membership schemes giving benefits to their regular customers.  Successful e-commerce website Amazon’s Amazon Prime is an example. Subscribing to Amazon Prime annually for a minimal amount opens doors to a jackpot of perks like unlimited free and fast shipping, exclusive access to deals, video and music streaming, and much more.

Signup For Newsletters

Many stores offer huge discounts to their first-time email subscribers. It helps to create more than one account to subscribe to and receive newbie discounts.

By staying subscribed, you also get to know about seasonal offers like Christmas, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc., periodic discounts, and coupons beforehand. Some retailers let their subscribers early access to the sale, so you can shop before the stock goes out.

A helpful tip – You can create a separate email account exclusively for subscribing to such newsletters. This helps in saving your personal email inbox from flooding with spam. If you feel the subscription is not helpful, you can always unsubscribe from the mailing list by clicking on “Unsubscribe” which is usually in the footer section of the mail. This is not the most helpful way to save money online but it certainly does help in some cases.

Check For Cashbacks

How does the idea of getting paid after shopping seem to you? Sounds exciting? There are plenty of ways you can earn cash after purchasing.

For example, the e-commerce giant Amazon has partnered with certain banks. When you shop using their credit/debit card, you earn cash. Similarly, there are e-wallets and even websites offering amazing cashback.

Loyalty Programs

Many online retailers, especially apparel stores have loyalty or reward clubs for their customers. Most of the time they charge a basic registration fee, but sometimes it’s free.

The benefit of these programs is that whenever you purchase from that store, you earn loyalty cash or coins. You can use these points later for discounts or cashback. A smarter way would be to let these rewards add up for a certain period, and later use them to buy something expensive for a cheaper price.

Gift Cards

Gift cards are a great way to make your loved ones feel special. Especially when you don’t know what to buy for them. The plus point is if you buy a gift card, most of the time you will be entitled to a discount code.

Festive Seasons

Online retailers go all out on offers during festive seasons. Sometimes the discounts go as high as 80%. According to Adobe Analytics Survey, online sellers saw a huge 15% increase in their 2020 Cyber Monday sales  (a total of $10.84 billion) when compared to that of 2019 ($9.4 billion). You can make a shopping list and wait for that time of the year to save big on your pocket.

Go Incognito

There’s this trick called dynamic pricing which online sellers use to their advantage. Have you ever noticed that the price of your favorite product has somehow gone up when you keep checking on it again and again? How about the price of the airline ticket you’ve been waiting to buy, suddenly soared when you checked it for the third time? 

This magic happens because of your search history. When you visit a website for the first time, it saves your browser’s cookies. With the help of these cookies, the websites can learn about your search history, your preferences, etc. When you visit the website again for the second time, it recognizes you as an old customer (based on your browsing history), and strategically increases the price of that item.

To over-smart this technique, you can switch your browser to ‘incognito mode’. Browsing incognito (also called private browsing) will not save your search history thereby, letting the website know that you’re a first-time visitor.

To open a private window, search for the settings icon on the top right corner of your browser (could be three vertical dots or lines), and select “New Incognito Window”.

Use Mobile App

Mobile shopping has become very handy, especially when you don’t have a desktop or a laptop at your disposal. Few shopping websites, especially fashion retailers, provide exclusive in-app discounts. Moreover, you can set your preference at the beginning to get tailored recommendations.

Abandon The Cart

Yes, you read it right. Add the products you want to purchase to the cart and sign out. There are high chances you’ll get a message from the retailer with a discount code for your selected item. But don’t become a frequent cart-absconder. It only works a handful of times.

Save Money Online While Shopping More!!!

More and more people are jumping on the bandwagon because of the countless benefits online shopping provides. So become a smart shopper by mixing these tricks to save money while shopping online. It might look tedious at first, but when it comes to saving money online, it’s worth the try.

FAQs

What are the benefits of online shopping?

No need to go out, shop from your couch, save money through coupons and discounts and the list goes on…

How do I save on online shopping?

Use the 50/30/20 budget rule. From your budget use, 50% on needs, 30% on wants, and 20% on savings. To maximize your savings, do check out our recommended tips to save money on online shopping.

Who can help me save money online?

Websites like Coupon It Now, work rigorously to get the latest offers from your favorite brands. Here you’ll get excellent deals and the latest discount coupons for an affordable shopping experience.

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