Special News, Special Deal

I found a really good website to buy from! Its called ebay’s Half.com. The name is exactly what it means. The prices here are cheaper than ebay so its worth having a look.

Cheers and have a good online shopping experience

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Bargain Hunting

Many of us shoppers love to go on what we call bargain hunting. A term used to describe the act of searching for the best price for a certain product. Here are a few tips how.

First, write down the name of the product you want and its full description. If its clothing, write down the size and be clear about it. For example American sizing are different to European and Asian sizing. If its kitchenware, note the pattern and engravings. Write down all details such as color, decorations, style and its recommended retail price, RRP, in its currency e.g. $US, $EU.

To get the RRP, do a general search using the item name eg- Guitar Hero III play station or bonds singlet chesty white, and see what the results come up with. The results should give you a rough estimate of the RRP. Now that’s down you can go bargain hunting!


Not sure where to start hunting?

Try my favorites for cheap goodies.

Click here for eBay!
shop.com
Classic Closeouts – Free Shipping
Tchibo.co.uk - A new experience every week


Cheers and have a good online shopping experience

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Phishing

Do you subscribe or receive newsletters from your online vendor? If so you need to be aware of phishing. Phishing is a term used to describe the act of obtaining personal and valuable information by pretending to be a safe seller. Phishing can come in forms of emails, snail mail, telephone calls and instant messaging.
Always check who the email is from. For example you subscribe to ebay’s newsletter. Is it from johnsmith@ebay.com or is it from johnsmith@someotherdomian.com
Which email address would you trust?

Shoppers should also be aware of link manipulation. Ask yourself where the link will take you. You can find out by rolling your mouse over the hyperlink. The address will appear in the lower left corner of the screen. Sometimes the link is very long due to programming requirements. The link is often safe if you see the domain name inside it.
For technical measures try to visit the website by manually typing in the domain address or use the bookmarked address.

Turn your firewall on. Sometimes firewalls and other virus protection programs can also detect phishing emails.

Companies tend to address their customers by name, so if you see a “Dear (insert company name) customer, it is quite possible that the email is a fake.

So for an a quick overview, you can prevent being caught phishing by slightly changing your browsing habits. Always check to see if you are being led to the domain name and look at the sender address. Type in the hyperlink if you can.

You can also do a quick background check using your Yahoo Toolbar. This is a free download and may even save you from becoming a phishing victim. You can download the toolbar here.

Cheers and have a good online shopping experience

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A list of places to get good and reliable firewall and virus protection software

CA - Anti-Spam
CA Anti-Virus 2008 - Fortify your PC with early, automatic defense against the latest viruses!
Panda Internet Security 2008 - $15 Discount Coupon

Shopping: Paying Safely

We’ve all heard of credit card fraud, security issues and identity fraud. These are some of the issues that start alarm bells ringing and stops people from clicking the ‘buy’ or ‘purchase’ button.

Being a customer, you’ve found the perfect item and have decided to buy. Before you fill out the order form and provide your personal details to the seller make sure that they are a reputable and trustworthy seller. Do a background check by typing the company or website name into a search engine such as Google.com. Typing in the company name will bring up other consumer opinions. They may have complaints such as never receiving the item or slow delivery or bad customer service. There may be praises such as quick delivery, low prices, trustworthy.

For background checks I recommend using Yahoo rather than Google. Yahoo have recently introduced a new toolbar which gives you quick and easy access when you are in a hurry. You can download the toolbar by clicking here.

After doing the background check, see if the order form is processed in a secure site. Usually there is a little button on the form telling you the security level of the website. If you can’t find one look it up in FAQ section or contact customer support.

Almost all vendors in the online market accept Credit Card, Paypal, money orders and bank transfers. The safest way to pay is to use paypal as the vendor never gets access to your personal details. If you are a vendor I recommend you sign up for a merchant account by clicking here.

Cheers and have a good online shopping experience

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Shopping With Style

The internet can be considered as large marketplace made for consumers. The concept of shopping on the internet has been around for many years but only recently have consumers unlocked its true potential allowing businesses - big and small to emerge and advertise in the market.

Internet shopping consists of consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the retailer directly, or do a search across many different vendors using a search engine.

With that said I should tell you there are many tricks of the trade that come with internet shopping. I will show you how to secure bargains and shop safely on websites such as
eBay!, shop.com

and other auction sites as well as safely purchasing different types of products from from the many vendors in the online market.

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Cheers and have a good online shopping experience

For more information about internet and online shopping click here.