It's that time of year again. Time to fight the crowds at the midnight Black Friday sales. Many of us would prefer to skip all that craziness and just do our shopping online.
There are some great deals online, some offering deep discounts, bonus gift cards, free shipping, and no taxes, but you still need to keep an eye out for scammers who may try to lure you to their sites with the promise of to-good-to-be-true deals.
Check out these 10 Tips for Shopping Safely Online to avoid getting ripped off.
Great article! Tons of good tips. However, I don’t agree with skipping the coupon links and going directly to a company website.
Many times the retail websites send out exclusive offers to approved affiliates that are not advertised on the retail sites.
The people offering the deal links go to an enormous amount of time to get the deals up and current and the links from trusted sites are safe.
Not sure which sites are trusted deal sites? Just Google “coupons” and you will find several.
What I wouldn’t recommend is downloading toolbars from deal sites. Generally they are intrusive and pesky. But just going from a link on a deal site to a retail website can and will save online shoppers money.
Just my two cents.
Donna Montaldo
Couponing Guide at About.com
http://couponing.guide@about.com