How to Buy Goods on the Internet

There are many articles about promotion, top ratings, key words and optimization of sites. Hundreds of articles were written for developers and optimizers, but who cares about customers?  After application of all those smart tricks of site-promoters finding valuable information in the Internet becomes extremely difficult. It seems that even e-shops are developed not for human customers but for search systems, though their purpose should be to sell, first of all, not just to fish for rating.

Herein we will try to formulate some simple rules may help to save time, traffic and money.

How to Find Goods on the Internet

Search for advice first

What I do first of all when I want to buy something is looking for an article with a name like “How to buy… (say) digital camera”. This way I take two advantages. I get a piece of advice. This is essential because it helps me to understand what I really want to buy and maybe choose the model and configurations. Also these articles often contain references to e-shops where the item can be bought. This allows saving time. If these references are included to the article, the author has already checked them. It is more safe and reasonable to use them than anything found through search system.

Ask friends

It is not always safe to buy goods on the Internet. So it would be quite reasonable if you ask reliable people to recommend some e-shops that were already proved to be trustworthy. You may simply ask your friends where they would buy this item.

But of course nobody can create articles for millions of goods available and our friends can not try everything.

Search for e-shops first

Sometimes it is a good idea to search for e-shops selling the goods you want to purchase rather than goods themselves. It is likely that number of e-shops in your area is not as large as number of references to the goods. Most of e-shops have own search systems inside their sites. So you may reduce time for search of goods if you will view not thousands of references to the product, but tens of e-shop sites.

Search systems

Sooner or later there appears a need to launch Google and search. Each time I search for something I face with two main problems. First is that there are too much references, second is that they are too few.

What to do if the result of search is empty?

 If your search system has not found any references, you have two ways out:

1.  to check if you spelled right;
2.  to use different search system. For example, if you used Yahoo, try Google.
3.  to check the settings of search;
4.  to change the key words.

First and second are obvious and needs no explanation. The third issue is more interesting. Usually each search system provides an opportunity to configure the search and set the language, the region, the relation between the words, rigidity etc. All that may be used to cut off irrelevant information, but too severe conditions may also prevent you from finding useful things. If this does not help you shall change the key words, try to find synonyms or think about another phrase that is associated with the product you need.

What to do if there are too many references?

Here we have an inverse task. You can configure your search like in previous case. But experience shows that this rarely helps. Here we come to the problem of key words again. This is one of the issues frequently addressed by optimizers. If you enter the combination that is a broad notion like “camera”, you will get too many references. But if you enter something more specific, for example, “digital camera Samsung” you will get a reasonable number of references and will be able to find something worthy among them. It is a good idea to search goods only in your area not to pay much for delivery.

So you might get about several tens of pages for your inquiry. Yet it will take much time to view them all. How can we optimize the process of viewing? Do not hurry to open the reference. Examine it first. Think logically. Read the title of the page found, pay attention to the context in which the key word is used, to the format of the file, to the domain name of the site. Usually the sum of all this information helps to avoid clicking the references that bear no useful information.

How to buy goods

Internet shopping differs from that of real world. Here you can get only the information provided by the advertiser. And there are many possibilities to cheat the customer. So you shall be careful. Sometimes it is reasonable to compare information about the product obtained from advertisement to any non-advertising source or to read the opinion of someone who has bought it. Make sure that your information about the item is complete. If it is not, try to get more details – send an inquiry or call to the company.

If you have already decided to buy this particular product you shall not hurry to pay for it. Spend some time and find the e-shop that offers optimal trade off between price and safety. Make sure that e-shop guarantees a possibility to return the product if you will not be satisfied with it. Check the contact information of e-shop, address, phone numbers etc, serious companies provide complete contact information. Examine the conditions of ordering and payment thoroughly and do not be afraid to ask if something is not clear. Try to get confirmation of your order is it is possible. Save the proof of your payment within several weeks after delivery.

After some practice process of Internet shopping becomes simple and pleasant, but yet you shall always remember about safety.