In today’s world where we have everything at our fingertips, the word convenient simply crosses our mind. That includes online shopping, where many great deals, bargains and choices can be found right in our own bed without having our pyjamas changed!

For some, they might find online shopping as an escape from stress and as well as a form of relaxation when they click the button “buy”.

This will lead to instant gratification and helplessly waiting for their parcel to come, without knowing that they may have made purchases for the umpteenth time and still question why they’re always broke at the end of every month!

Guilt and Regret are common feelings that we often have after we make purchases and that’s why we are offering 5 tips for you on how to save your money while still making those online purchases (no pun intended, really, go on and read):

1) Discounts, discounts, discounts

No matter how well you think you know your way around on your favourite online shopping sites, always check out their ‘sale’ or ‘offers’ tab to ensure that you are not missing any great deals offered by the seller.

If you’ve been meaning to buy that Beats headphones you saw in your local store, you may want to use specific word while searching online such as ‘Cheap Beats Solo2 Headphone’ and see if there are sites that offer discount for the item. If you’re lucky, you might even entitled for free shipping!

2) Shipping cost

This is another bonus tip that will help you to save your money. Always, always and always check the shipping cost before adding items to your cart. Often when we shop online, we tend to forgo the information and will only realize it after we have completed our detail upon checkout.

This is the moment when we have the “fight-or-flight” response and most of the time we choose to flee by proceeding to checkout because we are too lazy to fill in our detail again. Finding the best method of postage is also important in order to save your money.

Another way to save money on shipping is to buy important items at least a month ahead so you won’t have to choose the expensive “arrive next day” option.

3) Contact your seller if you have questions regarding an item

Online giants eBay and Amazon offer a similar assistance where you can privately contact sellers and ask them about an item that you would like to buy.

Most of the time, sellers would state items they sell whether the items are new, used or refurbished and sometimes certain items do not come originally packed in a box. These are important questions to take note of to avoid misunderstanding between you and your seller.

Should your seller takes forever to respond, you can always search in a review section and read all comments written by previous buyers to see if the seller is trustworthy. This will save your money from other extra charges and your time from worrying about your item of not being original and new.

4) Know and study the seller’s Refund and Exchange Policy

Another aspect that most of us may have overlooked all these years of shopping online is to read the refund and exchange policy provided by our seller. We often think that our purchases are as beautiful as being advertised on the website.

But when our item arrives, we are filled with that nervous excitement to open our parcel (we too feel this kind of excitement), our face begin to show a look of disappointment and horror as the item what we thought would be magical is not really magical after all (and no we don’t mean magical like Aladdin’s lamp). This is when we start to worry whether or not we could ship back the item and exchange for another goods or request for a refund instead.

On another occasion, if you received items you didn’t order, you will need to contact the seller and send back the wrong items you have received. On a bright side, if you have studied the refund and exchange policy before making any purchases as well as asked the seller beforehand (refer number 3), you could skip the hassle of contacting the seller that’ll probably take a few days for some of them to respond and just go on about shipping back the item with no extra charges.

5) Look first, shop later

We tend to rush for instant gratification habit like eating sweet food, procrastinating as well as online shopping. When we hear about end of season sale, we browse a specific website to check out items that are on sales as we quickly add items that we want to our cart.

Why don’t we do ourselves a favor and wait for at least 24 hours to see if we really need those items or do we actually feel the need to buy just because they are on sale. These are two different reasons that we need to know before we proceed with our payment.

On another note, wait, wait and wait until the end of the period for the sale because this will boost your chance to get those items at cheaper price. This is because sellers want to clear up all of the items that are still available and this is when you see they usually come up with a “Further Reductions” headline.

This usually occurs towards the end of the sale period. So wait, you got nothing to lose (really you don’t, unless it’s a Body Shop shampoo priced at $1, then you will have to get it now, pronto!).

ABOUT MOBILE MUSLIM

Mobile Muslim is a marketplace specifically for Muslim sellers and Muslim buyers. We put in effort to connect Muslim sellers and Muslim buyers to make the convenient ‘Halal World’ around their fingertips. We offer sellers a platform for them to make listing of their products, services, events and even fashions to reach their target audience. We offer buyers a platform for them to search and find Halal product or services such as Muslim tours, Muslim homestay abroad as well as cheap Muslim wedding planner businesses.

Mobile Muslim is available on Google Play for Android users.

For Apple users, we are available on WWW.MOBILEMUSLIM.COM

Mobile Muslim – For Greater Ummah.