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Online shopping is ubiquitous with convenience, ease, and saving time. I can sit on my couch in the comfort of my home and order a box of paper towels to my door, without even touching my wallet. What’s not to love about that? In fact, 90% of people say they bought something online in the last year. When it comes to shopping online, there are many factors that can affect the price of your purchase. You may be able to find a lower price on an item if you shop at different stores or wait for sales. But with all the time and money involved in shopping, sometimes it’s easier just to buy what you need when you need it.
This post is full of helpful tips for saving money while still getting great deals. Here are our top 10 ways to save money on online shopping…so you can afford to buy more things online of course!
10 Ways to Save Money with Online Shopping
- Subscribe to newsletters
- Follow your favorite brands on social media
- Sign up for rewards programs
- Buy with gift cards
- Use the Honey extension
- Put an item in your cart and wait
- Buy used items on Amazon
- Use cashback websites
- Browse incognito
- Use a VPN
1. Subscribe to Newsletters
I check my email at least once an hour because I’m a millennial. Every time I open up my inbox, I have at least one new newsletter from a company trying to sell me something.
Sometimes I roll my eyes, sometimes I get excited, and sometimes I waver over the delete button without even giving it the time of day. Despite the hesitation, I always open the newsletter no matter what. Why?
Because 8 times out of 10, there’s an exclusive online shopping offer inside, waiting just for me.
While the cluttered inbox can be annoying, it pays to join company newsletters. You’re often the first (and sometimes the only!) one to hear about any deals, discounts, or flash sales that are happening with the brand.
Not only that, you’ll often receive a discount or bonus just for signing up for the newsletter! I’ll take the 10% off my entire purchase, thank you very much.
The best part is, there’s always the unsubscribe button if you feel like your needs just aren’t being met.
Fun fact, Moola has a super-cool newsletter that you can sign up for. Sign up to the Moola newsletter
2. Follow Your Favorite Brands on Social Media
I love company social media accounts for a few different reasons:
- They make me feel more personally connected to the brand
- They keep me up to date on new store openings, fun events, and the latest products
- They help me save money.
Similar to newsletters, companies often use social media to give their followers access to exclusive deals and promotions. Not only that, but you’ll also be the first to hear about them, an important factor when deals are available in limited quantities.
Plus, you can enter giveaways and contests on social media. This gives you the opportunity to get some of your favorite products for free. I know it feels like you’re never going to win but…someone has to right?
Here at Moola, we use all of our social media accounts to promote the latest deals because it’s an easy way to quickly reach out to the people that care most about our company.
Feel free to follow our Instagram if you want to stay up to date on the latest offerings.
3. Sign up for Rewards Programs
I don’t have a bunch of plastic cards on my key ring anymore, but I am a member of countless online rewards programs. Get 20% off and earn points just for signing up for a free program? Sounds good to me.
Rewards programs are exactly what they sound like – programs that companies create to reward you for brand loyalty (buying things from them regularly). There are all different kinds of rewards programs out there, some better than others.
My favorite are the ones where you collect points that are then redeemable for cash. It’s a mindless cash-back system that’s absolutely free.
You can usually find information on rewards programs on the company website, perhaps in the footer or as a pop-up on the page. You can create an account and sign up online, then use your account to buy things, reaping in the points along the way.
Sometimes, you get additional discounts for signing up too, just like with the newsletter.
4. Buy Discounted Gift Cards & Use Them
Gift cards make for the ultimate money-saving tool because you get more for less. When you buy gift cards from places like Moola, you get deals and bonuses on the gift cards you buy. With a tap, your $100 becomes $110 and you now have more money to spend on the things you want to buy.
The bigger the value, the more of a bonus or discount you get. Buy gift cards on your phone and use them online by typing in the card information. Moola lets you copy and paste gift card numbers from the app, so redemption is really easy!
You can browse our website and look at what we have in stock to see if anything fits your fancy. I promise it’s the easiest $20 you’ll ever come by.
5. Use the Honey Extension
A few years ago, I discovered the life hack of googling company promo codes before making any purchases online. I was always taken to some questionable websites, full of codes that people claimed saved them tons of money.
You had about a 50/50 shot of one of them working.
It was always worth trying though, even if it did take me a few extra minutes to check all of the codes, because of the money I could potentially save online shopping.
Now, Honey does all that work for you. Here’s the ins and outs of their Google Chrome extension:
- It runs in the background of whatever shopping site you’re on: Once you install it, it sits happily on your computer and is only activated when it detects a deal for you.
- It scans its database for coupons and promo codes: Once it sees your making a purchase, it goes through its database and looks for all the promo codes that may be viable.
- It automatically applies the best promo code to your purchase: Ready to buy? Just click the green Honey button and watch it do its thing. It will start running through all the promo codes it has to find you the one that’s going to save you the most money.
- It’s absolutely free: No payment is required on your part. Just some money-saving magic.
Installing the Honey chrome extension was one of the best online shopping decisions I’ve ever made. It has simultaneously saved and encouraged me to spend a lot of money online shopping.
6. Put an Item in Your Cart and Wait
Occasionally while online shopping, I’ll put an item in my cart and get cold feet.
Some brands will then send me an abandoned cart email kindly encouraging me to proceed with my purchase. Even better, they’ll include a coupon for 10 or 15% off.
Not all brands do this – I would say you have about a 50/50 chance of getting a discount email in your inbox after abandoning your cart. It could also take a couple of days, so be patient. And make sure you get far enough to enter your email address.
That’s how they know how to find you when shopping online.
7. Buy Used Items on Amazon
Turns out, there’s a whole underbelly to Amazon that you may not know about. From Mechanical Turk to the Amazon Warehouse, there’s a lot more to the online shopping mega channel than meets the eye.
The Amazon Warehouse is pretty cool because it sells gently used, like new products, at a fraction of the price. Here’s what you need to know:
- Most products have been returned to Amazon unused but have been taken out of their original packaging
- To sell it, Amazon slashes the price and offers it up for purchase
Not only is this great for your wallet, but it’s also great for the environment. It cuts down on the amount of unnecessary waste being produced and encourages a circular economy, even when online shopping. We do love the environment here at Moola.
8. Use Cashback Websites Like Checkout51
Cash-back sites always sound too good to be true to me. You just offer me cashback on my purchases and send me a check every 3 months?
Cashback sites offer anywhere from 1 to a whopping 8% cashback on purchases. The cool thing is that you can save more at places you would be buying things from anyway, like Amazon and Shoppers Drug Mart.
Just go on to their website, make an account, and start shopping! Depending on how big of purchases you’re making, you’ll only collect a few dollars at a time. Give it a few months, however, and you’ll have a nice little check coming in the mail for you.
9. Browse Incognito
This one might get a little techy but bear with me.
When you visit a website, your web browser collects little messages called cookies. These cookies track your website activity, so sites can gather information about your online behavior. This is super valuable to companies because it lets them know what you’re paying attention to and therefore, what they should be paying attention to.
Websites can use cookies to see what you’re looking at buying when you’re online shopping, and then raise the price of the item accordingly. This is a popular practice with flights – it may be the reason why that flight you keep looking at keeps going up in price. It could be the airline…or it could be the cookies.
Avoid any of this questionable behavior by browsing in incognito or private mode on your computer. This prevents cookies form being collected and can keep websites from collecting data and low-key raiding the price on you.
Not sure how to do it? It’s different on every computer, but a quick google search of how to browse in incognito will tell you all you need to know.
10. Use a VPN
Get in on those exclusive south-of-the-border online shopping deals by using a Virtual Private Network or VPN. VPNs allow you to hide your country’s location so you can access things you wouldn’t normally be able to access. This includes American websites with exclusive American deals.
Then, have the package shipped to Canada as you otherwise would. Even with shipping and exchange rate differences, you usually save enough to make it worth it. You can also go in with friends on an order and split the cost of shipping, helping you save even more.
VPNs are relatively inexpensive (say a few bucks a month) and have a host of other security-related benefits, besides just saving you money. But…the saving money thing is pretty cool too.
Yes, you can save money while online shopping with Moola
Between buying gift cards on Moola, using incognito windows, and installing the Honey Google Chrome extension, you can be a regular tech-savvy, money-saving, online shopper in no time!
Ready to get started? See what Moola can do for you (and your wallet).
