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Shopping Online Here Are Some Ways To Save!

February 27th, 2009 by admin

Probably everyone by now has at least heard about eBay or Amazon, right? These companies are still capturing the majority of the e-commerce market among other sites such as Walmart.com and for you technology buffs, Buy.com, Circuitcity.com and Bestbuy.com. All of these sites of course generate large revenues in online retail.

E-tailers: Shopping Comparisons Sites like Shopzilla.com, Pricegrabber.com and Consumerclub.com actually will give you the best deal by comparing the prices of major retailers like Sports Authority, Target, Macys, Barnes & Noble and JC Penny. A major goal of Consumerclub.com of is to offer consumers the best deals and make the shopping experience easy. Instead of spending the time of researching every site for the best deals, try one of these online comparison sites. They will do all the work for you and find you the best deal.

Take Advantage on Shipping Deals Most of the major online retailers offer discounted shipping or even free shipping if you buy a certain product or spend a certain amount of money. Also, after Thanksgiving heading into the holidays, many online retailers will offer free shipping and giftwrap services.

Check Coupon Sites Check sites like Valpak.com, Coolsavings.com and Eversave.com. These sites offer all kinds of discounts to major retailers. Coolsavings.com offers up to 30 percent off on groceries and travel. You can even print out coupons and drive to the retailer to purchase merchandise. These sites also offer freebies and free samples of products that are not on the market yet.

Try Overstock.com Overstock.com is an online retailer that has partnerships with many brand-name companies. Their relationships with these companies allow them to purchase product at huge discounts. Overstock.com takes advantage of the products that the major manufacturers overestimate for their yearly sales. Overstock.com buys those products at below wholesale price. Also, Overstock.com takes advantage of stores that are moving or downsizing. If this is the case, these products that the stores don’t want will be sold to Overstock.com also at a below wholesale rate. Then they pass their discounts to the consumers. The site claims it can save you up to 80 percent every day, which is true after looking at a deal for iPod/mp3 speakers normally listed at $59.99, selling for $12.95, which is a savings of 78 percent. .

Is Online Shopping Now Safer? The answer to the question is yes. It is now safer to shop online. According to an article on AllBusiness.com, e-commerce is actually much more secure than real-world commerce. When you leave your credit card receipt on a restaurant table or give your credit card number to a telephone operator, you’re accepting the risk that things you didn’t order might appear on next month’s bill. Yet when you enter a credit card number on a reputable e-commerce site, you’re sending it over a secure connection to a server that’s accessible only to authorized personnel and protected against even the most determined intruders. Just make sure you shop with a reputable company that verifies that payment button is encrypted. Many sites will have padlock emblems verifying this. Pay Pal, which is a payment system made most popular from eBay, has state-of-the-art encryption that protects your information from cyber thieves. You don’t have 100 percent protection while shopping online, but your odds are not as great being a victim of identity theft as you are lead to believe.

Copyright 2006 Debt Management Credit Counseling Corp.

Pete Glocker is employed in the Education and Charitable Services Department at Debt Management Credit Counseling Corp. (”DMCC”), a 501c(3) non-profit charitable organization located in Boca Raton, Florida. Pete graduated from Florida Atlantic University with a BA in Multimedia Journalism and is an experienced web producer for Tribune Interactive products Sun-Sentinel.com and SouthFlorida.com. DMCC provides free financial education, personal budget counseling, and debt management plans to consumers across the United States. Debt management plans offered by DMCC help consumers relieve the stress of excessive debt by reducing credit card interest rates, consolidating and lowering monthly payments, and stopping collection calls and late fees. DMCC financial counselors can be reached for free education materials, budget counseling and debt management plan quotes by calling 866-618-DEBT or by visiting http://www.dmcccorp.org . Pete Glocker can be reached by email to pete@dmcccorp.org.

What You Should Know About Shopping Online

February 6th, 2009 by admin

If 299,999 planes land safely that’s not news. It takes just one to crash and that becomes news around the world and flying is seen as unsafe. Over 100 countries are at peace but the few that are fighting wars make the news. Understandably, a newscaster is not likely to think it’s a lead story to say, “Well, everything went well today. People went to work, returned home, showered, ate and slept. They are expected to get up next morning and do the same thing.” Media has become entertainment. We need to give the people information to excite them or at least to pull at their heartstrings.

The same happens with the Internet. As I watched the news last night, I saw a story about some attempt to defraud clients of a bank online. So some quack decided to “try a thing.” He/she of course got international media attention. The $8 billion that was spent safely on the Internet over the Christmas holidays, however, didn’t get the same kind of attention. So there is a news bias and we need to be aware of it.

It’s important to be alert but there’s no need to panic. The Internet is probably one of the safest places to do business because there is usually very little, if any, human intervention. A credit card is charged, a secure server sends the money to a bank account and the seller in most cases never even sees the number. You can tempt a man but you can’t tempt a computer. It would just do what it is programmed to do. This, of course, means that computers can be programmed to do fraud. This is why it’s important to be on the look out and make sure you’re not the one out of 300,000.

Here are the basics to keep in mind when shopping online:

  • Look for the “https:” which is also known as the Security Certificate (SSL).

  • Search for reviews on the company. Do your homework.
  • If there’s a phone number on the website, call to check if there are real people at the other end.
  • Don’t buy from any merchant who tries to hide his/her identity.
  • Keep a print record of your transaction.
  • Report any fraudulent activity to the relevant authorities of the country from which you bought right away.
  • Beware of businesses from countries with weak fraud laws. Again, research will pay off.

    The International Internet Authority has a list of countries whose businesses will not get ‘High Assurance SSL Certificates.’ Personally I find the list looks more political than anything else. So I wouldn’t use it as a guide to tell me where to buy from or not. What I would use the list for is to check the honesty of the merchants. If the website says it has a ‘High Assurance SSL’ then I would know for sure that it is being less than honest.

    However, in today’s world with ’skyboxes’ and Internet telephony, it is easy to fake an address and pretend to be from the U.S.A. for example. In fact the few people I know who have been “burnt” online were defrauded by apparent US-based merchants. Just so you’re aware, I’ll actually tell you about the one I remember: Brooke Distributors out of Miami. Again, just for your knowledge, here’s the list of countries from the IIA: Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Rwanda, Sudan, and Syria.

    Hey, if in doubt about a company from whatever country, just don’t buy.

    Some people have also opted to get a special low-limit credit card solely for Internet transactions. That’s smart too. What I know will be a big hit here is when we get an authorise-per-transaction system. So there’s another Internet Opportunity for you. Talk to your bank and suggest the creation of a credit card that can only be used on an authorise-per-transaction basis. The cardholder would be able to log into his/her account on the Internet and specify, for example, “I am going to buy from X website and I authorise X amount.” So if anything goes wrong, you don’t lose much, but remember the news bias. Out of the 1 million transactions that go well, you’ll only hear about the one that didn’t.

    In this regard, as website owners, it is important that you see things from the other side of the fence as well. What has made you buy online in the past is very much the same that will make others buy from you. In another issue of Internet Opportunities, we’ll go further into details about online shopping for the benefit of merchants.

    Aleem Khan, a senior partner at Breaking News, is one of the few people in the world with a four letter domain name bn.gs. He is an accredited Agent of the International Internet Authority who speaks Spanish, French and English.