How to Shop Safely Over The Net?

As Christmas is approaching you might be planning to shop online where you have to make the payment through plastic cards. This article will surely be helpful for you if you have decided to go online for the best bargains this season.

The e-commerce industry is flourishing with each passing day with a number of websites and web portals that claim to be safe and secured for online shopping. But the irony is that you cannot rely on every e-commerce enabled website that promises you a fair deal.

However you can act smartly by being proactive!

Here are some precautions that give an idea about how to shop safely over the Net:

Check what the previous customers have to say about the seller whom you have chosen for shopping. These comments will give you some basic information about the seller and its quality of products or services. You can check the seller's rating on sites like Google Shopping. Low "star" ratings should be avoided as far as possible.

When you are buying something, naturally you have to pay for it. But it is a good practice to make the payment through Credit Card whenever you are shopping online.

Now if you have decided to use the Credit Card to make payment over the Internet then you will be asked about the Credit Card information. Ascertain that the merchant website's web address has "https" instead of "http".

If you have opted to shop online visit the merchant's or seller's website directly. It is not advisable to go through a "coupon link" that was sent by an unreliable source. Verify first that the coupon has come from a vendor who is known to you and you have already subscribed to it then only go and click it.

If you are using a shared computer for shopping then make sure to log out and clear the browser history, cookies and page cache after you have finished ordering something.

Make sure to find the physical address of the vendor before you order something over the Net.

Most importantly, read the seller's return, refund, exchange and shipping policies and yes, those fine prints and stars should be looked with special attention.

There are some more issues that are not discussed here, hope we'll discuss them some time later.

Remember online shopping is very convenient and gives you incredibly hot bargains over the products but what you require is the ability to judge, what is genuine and what is not!