This shopping season keep yourself safe, look for bargains, and try makers for non-traditional gifts.
BEWARE
– Watch for substandard look-alike products: Walking the streets of a city you can find curbside vendors selling bogus merchandise. Don’t be part of the crowd that spend over $2 trillion on fake merchandise every year, products that sometimes are very convincing.
– Look for fake manufacturer’s warranty and safety seals: Don’t go for bargains with opened or fake merch. Holographic labels may also be the best guarantors.
– Get product descriptions: Make sure you get what you pay for.
– Watch for fake websites and stores: Watch for fly by night sellers and deals too good to be true. Do others a favor and contact a bogus site’s hosting company to report sellers, if necessary.
– Don’t rely on price or ratings: Scammers can create fake reviews or ratings. Look for more detailed reviews than just one liners.
– Never click on email attachments or solicitations: Go directly to a seller’s website by typing its name into your browser address bar. Watch for slight variations in site names.
– Verify you are dealing with a real company by typing the third-party seller’s address into a search engine, using “scam” or “complaint” to check for prior warnings from other customers.
– Watch for the lock: Make sure you buy only from sites that have the lock icon in the address bar of your browser. This signifies that the site uses secure shopping.
– Buy with a credit card: Your card is safer than debit cards, fake gift cards, crypto, or possibly bogus apps.
BARGAINS
– Follow your fav retailers. You can get the latest bargains and news.
– Review the seller’s site for learning about the seller and to get their other recommended bargains.
– Used isn’t necessarily bad. Refurbished merchandise, like computers, from Amazon, Walmart, and Target can present significant discounts.
– Buy gift cards in December when some sellers have card bargains.
– Remember, you deserve great customer service.
– Customize and narrow your search by price or other criteria.
– Watch out for shipping fees.
– Look for Amazon bargains at Camel Camel Camel.
– Use cash back and reputable coupon sites like Rakuten.com, TopCashback.com, CouponCabin.com, Ibotta.com, RetailMeNot.com, and KrazyCouponLady.com.
– Again, review ratings AND reviews.
MAKERS
Amazon.com/handmade: Bet you didn’t know this side of Amazon.
Etsy.com: You can click on gift mode and get suggestions for your friends, wife, husband, relatives.
Michaels.com/makerplace: Read their gift guide and how-tos to make your own gifts.
iCraftgifts.com and goimagine.com: Homie gifts and sellers near you, respectively.
Cratejoy.com: Themed gift baskets with optional subscriptions.
Artisans.coop: View unique gifts and gifts for children.