Top Tips on Online Shopping

We have all suddenly come to realise just how convenient it is to do shopping online, especially at the most important times of year such as Christmas. In fact it isn’t just gifts you can purchase online but a wide variety of other items including groceries, cars, and electronic equipment and of course insurance policies. But what should one do to ensure that one carries out secure shopping online?

In this article we offer several tips you may find useful when you are choosing to buy products or services online. There are many things people are concerned with when they are shopping online and the kinds of things that they worry about are as follows:-

1. That the item they receive is in fact not the same as what they actually ordered. 2. That their email details will actually be provided to other parties without requesting permission first. 3. Are scared that their financial or personal details will be stolen. 4. That they receive phishing emails from sources which disguise themselves and get the customer in to believing that it has been sent in fact by a trusted financial institute or retailer.

So it is important that just as you are careful when shopping in a regular store you need to protect your financial and personal details at all times. Hopefully the information that is given above will ensure that your next online shopping experience is safe and enjoyable.

Tip 1 – It is important that you purchase goods only from secure web sites and the best way of ensuring that they use encryption technology. This way the information you give to them will be scrambled in such a way that hackers cannot actually obtain it as it passes between you and the retailer. There are several ways of recognising the sites which are secure and below we look at what these are.

a. Look at the sites address at the top of the browser page. If at the beginning you notice it shows https:// this will immediately inform you that the site is secure. But be aware that this may not appear until you actually move to the sites order page. b. Another sign to look for when determining if a site is secure or not is to look at the bottom of the web page. If there is a closed padlock then this will show you that the site is a secure one to use. However, there are other sites that use an unbroken key rather than a padlock.

Tip 2 – It is important that before you place any orders at any online stores you do some research into them beforehand. It is a good idea to place a small order with them firstly to check out how trustworthy they really are. Some things you could look for to help further ensure that the site you are considering using is reputable are as follows:-

a. That they provide both not an email address but also a physical one as well. b. That they give details of either a number for a customer service line or order line that you can contact directly. Ring the number provided and ask a few questions to establish the legitimacy of the business further.