Online Holiday Shopping

This is an entry in our daily Internet Marketing Advent Calendar series. Each day your favorite marketing elves will focus on a new topic to get your internet marketing in order before the start of the new year.

The holiday season is upon us, and many of us may turn to the internet to do some of our holiday shopping. The benefits of doing your shopping online are great, no long lines, no gas wasted, and the ability to compare prices on the fly are among some of the benefits I enjoy the most.

Crowded Mall
Photo Credit: xcode

At the same time, the holiday season is also a time that you need to be extra careful when making purchases online. Email scams, Pop-up ads, and even faulty results from search engines step it up this time of year. Those ads for this year’s “can’t miss” toys and electronics will be tempting to click on.

Fortunately, there are ways around the risks involved in these ads. By using the confirmation principal, you can save yourself from some headaches in the future. Note the company or website that is offering you the deal. If it is a company you have not heard of try doing a search for that company or website and see what you find. Scams will most likely be revealed by reading through the first page or two of posts.

When it comes time to checkout you can also do a simple check to confirm you are on the website you think you are. There are scam websites out there that will mimic major companies’ websites in order to get users to hand over their personal information. Note the website URL and do a search for the company. Most major companies will come up as the first result in your search. They may own many domains, but in almost all cases they will all redirect you to the main website domain, which should be the address you see in that first post. If the two match, you are most likely okay to proceed with the purchase.

Giving your personal information over the internet is always going to have its risks. But by applying these simple principals when making your purchases, you will minimize your risk and can enjoy the benefits of shopping from home. Happy Hallidays!

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