In the 21st century, more and more people are shopping online. With good reason. There are many advantages to shopping on the internet.
For instance, in many cases when buying online the consumer can avoid state sales tax. In most cases, if the seller is in a different state than the buyer, there is no sales tax. Also, there is no need to get up, shower, get dressed and drive to the store. You don’t have to drive all over town looking for what you need, in many cases not finding it, and wasting hours looking. On the net, you point and click, taking seconds to search different stores, many which are in other countries. You can shop all over the world without leaving your house. All you need is a credit card.
However, there are some advantages to going to the store as opposed to buying online. One is that you take your purchase home with you that day instead of waiting for it to arrive via the US Postal Service, UPS or Fed Ex. A savvy internet shopper knows to order something a few days before he or she will need the item to give it time to arrive. A very savvy online shopper knows not to choose the cheapest shipping option when for a couple dollars more they can get priority service.
For those of you new to online shopping here are some tips:
If you choose standard mail, do not expect your package to arrive in a couple of days. Expect it to be a week or longer.
If you choose priority mail and it does not arrive in two days, it is not the fault of the seller. The seller does not work for the post office, nor does the post office work for the seller. They have no control over what happens after the post office picks up the package. If the pick up was done promptly, that is all they can do. Now, if there has been no tracking on the package you ordered three days ago, then you might want to give the seller a call and see what the hold-up is.
Do not worry so much about hackers getting you credit card info over the internet. They are probably more likely to get it if you go to a big chain store. After all, if you wanted to hack into a retailer to steal credit cards, are you going to hack into some small web site or Target? Where do you think you will get more credit card numbers?
If you need something for the weekend, then do not wait until Thursday to order it. Order it on Monday.
If you open the package and it looks like it is different than what you expected, don’t try to “make it work.” Put it back in the box, contact the seller and tell them you did not get what you ordered. Once you have tried to use the item, it can no longer be sold as new. This makes it unlikely you will get a refund.
Once you get accustomed to shopping online, you may be surprised at how much you can get without having to leave your house. Even Wal-Mart and other big chains have websites you can order from. If enough of us shop via the internet, perhaps we can drive the price of gasoline down.