As more Americans than ever are making their holiday purchases online, consumer advocates are responding with tips for getting the most out of the experience.
Financial guru Dave Ramsey recently posted a blog offering a list of strategies for finding the best deals and saving the most money when shopping online.
“You can find plenty of bargains if you know just a few tricks!” Ramsey wrote before delving into the specifics of holiday shopping bargains.
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First, he recommended utilizing coupon codes, which are often available through a web search for a particular item or retailer and can be used for savings of up to 25 percent.
An even easier alternative, Ramsey wrote, involves using a site that exists to find the best bargains on the internet.
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“To name a few, DealNews.com, Offers.com, Slickdeals.net, and MoneySavingMom.com will do the searching for you,” he wrote.
Other sites, like Raise and CardCash, sell gift cards for lower than their face value.
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Sites like Groupon offer special deals while applications like Ebates provide cash back based on their spending.
Ramsey advised that some online retailers and traditional stores are open to bargaining with shoppers. He encouraged cost-conscious consumers to push for discounts prior to checkout.
He noted that specific days of the week can also have an impact on the cost of certain items. In addition to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the days commonly associated with brick-and-mortar and online discounts, respectively, some retailers introduce sales on a particular day of the week.
“Sunday is typically the best day for purchasing airline tickets,” he wrote.
Some of his tips, like looking for increasingly common free shipping offers, are self-explanatory. Others, including advice for avoiding dynamic price hikes, are a bit more complex.
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Ramsey noted that many retailers charge different prices based on the ZIP code or other personal information about a shopper available through his or her browsing history. He provided his advice for avoiding potential markups.
“Before you make an online purchase, clear your browsing history and cookies, sign out of your social media sites, and switch to private browsing in your browser (sometimes it’s called incognito mode),” he wrote.
To ensure the lowest prices, Ramsey noted that many retailers make price matching an easy task for shoppers. Walmart’s app, for example, allows shoppers to scan their receipt and receive a refund if any of their purchases were advertised for a lower price elsewhere.
His final piece of advice involves patience.
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“If you abandon your shopping cart, many sites will send a savings offer in a follow-up email,” he wrote.
Along with safety tips, Ramsey joined an array of security experts in warning shoppers to take precautions before providing personal information online.
Americans spent a record $6.6 billion Monday in online shopping, an increase of about 17 percent over last year’s Cyber Monday, Business Insider reported.
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