For me, and for several other people, shopping from an online store tends to be an impulsive exercise.
That’s because with an online store when you browse through catalogs for a particular item, you’re often pulled slowly towards making a lot of other purchases. Your mind comes up with tons of reasons why you should acquire the items that weren’t part of your budget.
An online store makes life easier and hassle-free. It removes the factor of stepping out of the house or even taking time out of your busy schedule to shop. However, there are a few questions you need to ask before shopping from an online shopping store.
Important Questions To Ask Yourself Before Shopping From An Online Store
Thanks to owning my online store and being an avid online shopper, I know the necessary questions you have to answer before any purchase.
To help my readers, I have made a short checklist they can always use when buying any item online.
1) Is There A Return Policy?
An online store that doesn’t make room for customers to return the merchandise under certain circumstances should be a red flag for you. It is great for stores to provide free returns, especially with damaged or counterfeit products.
As a customer, it is extremely risky to shop online from websites without reading the return policies.
2) What Are The Payment Options?
How you are going to pay for your items is an important question you need to consider. These days, most online stores have different payment options available for their customers to choose from.
Online buyers can either pay through credit cards, debit cards, or buy now pay later using platforms like Klarna and After pay.
Hence, always carry out a proper investigation before browsing through the store’s website.
3) Does The Store Have a Size Guide?
This question should be considered when ordering clothes online. A store’s size guide is an important thing because different online stores have different sizes. To avoid your medium size dress turning out large, look for the sizing guide or measurement chart, and take your measurements.
Also, to be on the safe side, you can always order a size larger than yours and alter the dress to fit you.
4) How Safe is The Store’s Website?
The toughest question is usually if you can trust the store’s website with your card details, address, and personal information. Before inputting this information, you have to be certain that the website you are using is safe. To know if their server is secure, check the URL. If it starts with https:// with an ‘s’ at the end of http, then you can be certain of its security.
5) What Is The Expected Shipping Time?
You should always have knowledge about when your order is arriving. Most online stores let you know the estimated time of arrival when you place the order. If the website doesn’t allow you to track your item, or gives you an estimate, you need to be cautious.
What if you are ordering a surprise birthday gift for your children and it does not arrive before their birthday? Your money will be wasted and you will end up being disappointed.
6) Are There Customer Reviews?
As an online shopper, you need to know what the customer reviews are saying. In case you do not know anyone who has ordered from the store before, you can always go to the reviews and check their customer ratings. Also, since it is hard to ascertain if the product is just like the picture displayed on the website, these reviews give you an extra confidence boost.
With customer reviews, you can get answers to almost all your questions about the store’s products, service, quality, and its arrival time.
Do you enjoy shopping from stores online? What factors do YOU consider before making any purchase online? I’d love to your thoughts; please share in the comments below.