How to Bag a Bargain Online
If you ask anyone you know who is about to buy something online whether they would like to spend less and get exactly the same item, I can guarantee that most people would jump at the chance. Since moving into a new flat, there have been quite a lot of purchases recently and the majority of them have been online. Therefore I thought i’d share a few of our tips for being thrifty, so that perhaps next time you’re browsing, you can also bag a bargain.
Groupon is a recent discovery of mine, and If I’m honest, Adam and I have gone a bit Groupon mad recently. It’s a site that provides a platform for businesses to advertise discounts for services or goods. The great thing about Groupon is that you can filter your search by place or town so that you only get the deals in your local area.
For my birthday, I was treated to a full head of highlights with cut and blow dry. 4 hours in the hairdressers and it only cost £35!!
We’ve also bought an 11 course Greek meze meal for two, right by the water in Plymouth for only £11, a 4 hour kayak hire along the river for £20, a nutribullet for half the price selling in shops and a small dehumidifier for £15. Basically, every time we need to buy something, want to go for a meal or a day out, we check Groupon first.
From beauty treatments to holidays, you pay for whatever you’re buying on the Groupon site and then book it through the company- initially I was skeptical that it was legit, but everything we’ve bought on there so far has met, and surpassed our expectations.
Topcashback is another fantastic site that is a recent discovery for us. It seems like an impossibility to simply go through one website to another and get paid for the privilege, at no extra cost to yourself. But so far so good, and just by going through the topcashback site, we’ve made over £100 cash back between us.
The way it works is you set up a free online account, then every time you buy anything online, go through the topcashback site first, find the store you were looking for, and click on it. Hey presto, you can then buy what you were looking for, and topcashback will take a record and give you the percentage cash back that it advertised. How and why do they do this you ask? Apparently the companies pay a commission to cash back sites to advertise them, and in return, the cash back sites give the user a small percentage of that commission back. Hence why we seemingly can get anything up to 30% off what we would have ordinarily have spent.
Percentages vary depending on the online store, so it’s worth checking back regularly for deals. Some companies also offer you a set money back offer but these tend to be for bigger items such a insurance. Once you’ve stored up enough money on the site, you can transfer it into your bank account directly or onto PayPal.
One of the best ways I’ve found to save money online is in sales. Everywhere you look recently there seem to be sales. Rather than browse the latest items in my favourite shops, I tend to navigate to the big red signs blaring discounts. The great thing about the number of sales that appear nowadays is that no longer is it just the last horrible dregs left from a crumpled corner of a shop that no one in their right mind would give a second glance, but you’re almost certain to find items you were lusting over in shop windows only weeks ago, now half the price and still just as beautiful.
I have a bit of a love hate relationship with eBay. Part of me loves the excitement of bidding on items when they’re really cheap, and getting a bargain. Part of me hates the stress of when you’ve been outbid and it was something you really wanted but you can’t justify the cost.
I’m not going to explain how to use eBay, I’m pretty sure the youngest generation of children would know how to use it better than I do, but I will say these things I’ve learnt:
– Know your limit, and stick to it. Even with the thrill of the chase in the last few seconds, don’t go over the amount you originally told yourself you’d be willing to pay- you’ll only regret it afterwards
-On big ticket items check the description fully, just in case you think you’re buying an iPad for £50 and you end up getting the box! Seller reviews are your saving grace here too, especially if they’re an eBay shop
– Wait till the last moment possible to place your bid, watch as many things as you can that are similar to get a general gauge for what price similar things are going for.
– Sell, sell sell!! If other people are making so much money flogging their stuff, why can’t you?
I have been a huge fan of both freecycle and gumtree and to date they have never really let me down. Whilst the same concept stands for both, freecycle is, as the name suggests, free. People post some weird and wonderful items they’re keen to get rid of and nearly everything is collection only, so it’s definitely worth following your local email train or website. As its run by volunteers in each district they’re all slightly different. Equally, there is also the option to post WANTED adverts for things you’re looking for that people might have lurking in their garage or attic that they no longer need.
Gumtree is very similar, but often includes slightly more sought after items as well as adverts for local services or rooms for rent. We’ve used both websites frequently and collected some amazing finds since moving into the flat including nearly new huge IKEA wardrobes, a tumble dryer, roof bars and even my car! It can be very hit and miss depending what you’re looking for, and much like eBay, you have to keep checking back frequently, but one man’s rubbish is another man’s gold after all!
Price comparison websites can be very useful for quick and easy overview of the cheapest companies on the market for any sort of insurance. Once you’ve selected one from the hundreds listed on google, they are easy to use- the only irritations are that they often require an email address or sign up when you first use them, but you can easily unsubscribe if you get irritated by the amount of messages appearing in your inbox. We’ve always found that one of the best things to do is ring up each of the top 5 companies in turn and play them off of each other, driving down the best prices and often halving the original quote online. Remember that companies are constantly after your custom and even if you push just a little (or tell a white lie about how the lowest price another company has given you) you can end up with such a bargain.
Showrooming – I never knew that there was a name for this behaviour, until I read Anna’s article in The Cornish Life. A lot of people do this without even considering it. You are in a lovely shop(for me, this is usually somewhere like The White Company) looking at some homewares (ooh homewares!) and then you find something you love, but it’s got a hefty price tag. Out the phone comes, onto Amazon to probably find something identical or similar for half the price. The joy of the Internet, and yet the downfall of a lot of high street stores. A new era of shopping!
This is one of the best ways to save money online, by not letting yourself buy things! The impulse buy at 1am when you’ve had a crappy day at work and are trying to cheer yourself up is probably the most regrettable one. It’s hard to resist, but sometimes just waiting until the morning to see if you still think it’s a good idea, or even just not saving your card details so your brain has got twenty more seconds to scrabble around in your purse and tell itself that you actually don’t need another dress/purse/cushion…etc will save you a lot of wasted money on silly things you don’t actually need.
