Tips for Saving When Shopping Online

I am extremely busy, all the time. When it’s time to buy gifts, or just because, I hit the internet and shop online. In fact, this year’s Christmas shopping was done all online. I love that I don’t have to haul all my kids to the store and deal with the headache that comes from kids being in a store. I just sit back and wait for my packages to arrive.

When it comes to shopping online, you can still get the same saving experience that you would in store using coupons.

I was compensated for this post, regardless, all opinions are my own.

Tips for Saving When Shopping Online

Know Where You are Shopping

First and foremost, it’s important to check out the reviews for the website you are shopping from. Find out what other customers thought about the site’s customer service, shipping rates and times and of course, products.  I use SiteJabber to find out what people are saying.

Take a Second

Registering for accounts on the sites you usually shop from, will often let you save items to your cart. It’s a silly thing, but if you don’t need the things right away, you can check back to see if new deals or coupons have popped up. Many times, the company will send you coupons for the items you’ve left in your cart. I always add things to my Amazon cart, and love to see when the price drops on an item.

Research

Check the reviews on the items you want before clicking “buy.” Save yourself from having to ship back to the site, or going the the actual store, if you aren’t satisfied with a product. I was super excited about buying a dress from one of my favorite sites, thanks to the user reviews, I saved myself from buying a dress that was actually going to be too short.

Think About Shipping

My favorite thing about shopping online is not having to actually go anywhere. Make sure you check out the shipping costs of the site before you get your heart set on a certain item. It’s crazy how much many sites charge for shipping. Also, it may not be as convenient, but check to see if they have site to store options for free.

Use Coupons

This really is the ultimate key to saving when shopping online. Most companies have coupon codes for percentages off, money off and even shipping discounts. The codes are used exactly like a paper coupon, and they do expire.  Many times these coupon codes are sent to customers that are signed up for emails. If you are anything like me, your inbox is full to bursting every morning from these email blasts. You can also search the web for these codes, but often they are expired or not active.  These ways of gathering codes are honestly a huge hassle. Instead, all you need to do is install one Chrome extension called CouponMate and let it do all the work for you!

CouponMate was designed with the user completely in mind.  Instead of searching the web or your inbox for the latest codes, let CouponMate hunt for you. CouponMate searches daily for awesome coupon codes for over 100,000 brands. Yes, that’s right over 100,000!! You don’t have to even leave the site you are shopping behind to grab your codes, CouponMate’s handy notification lights up and displays the number of deals available.

Scroll through the featured coupon codes and click on the one you want, and CouponMate automatically copies it for you. All you have to do is hit paste in the coupon code box in the check out, and it’s good to go!

CouponMate is also working on automating the whole process and putting the best code in your cart, right now around 250 websites are already supported. Supporting websites let you use the “Find Best Coupon” feature that appears during checkout and will scroll through all the available codes and find the best possible code for your specific items and apply it for you!

I have had such a great time shopping with the CouponMate extension. It really makes it amazingly easy to find what I need. It took me a second to install, and was so easy I was using it within minutes. What just how easy it is to install with their YouTube video! I can’t believe I used to search for codes everywhere! CouponMate saves me so much time. I was able to score some great deals (including free shipping!) on some of my favorite shopping sites.  It’s definitely something you can use all the time, all year long!

CouponMate is available right now for Chrome, but extensions for Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari are all currently in development. That’s another great thing about CouponMate…they are in for the long haul and are always working to improve what they have!  Add CouponMate today and get to shopping!

What are your favorite tips for saving when shopping online?