Online Shopping Tips Expanded
EXPANDED INFORMATION:
1. Does the website have a local or toll free phone number?
This doesn’t always guarantee that the company is located in your country as it is easy for a business to obtain a landline number using VOIP (Voice Over IP), however at least you can speak to someone if you have concerns. Although some websites discourage phone contact in order to keep staffing costs down, those that do have phone numbers will usually list it on their “Contact Us” page. If they don’t have a contact us page I would be a little concerned.
2. Is the business located in your home Country?
Making your purchase from a business located in the same Country means that contacting them and receiving your goods wont be complicated by differences in Time Zones, Currency conversions, Languages and Delays caused by international shipping.
As mentioned earlier the FAQ’s and Contact us pages should indicate where the business is located, or at least in what Country.
If there is little information located on the websites contact us or FAQ page regarding where they are based or where goods are dispatched from, a slightly “tech savvy” shopper can always search the internet to see who owns the website and if it is being hosted by a local website hosting company. Once again the information you find is not definitive but does give you an indication of where the business may be based. Using websites such as “Go Daddy’s Who Is” can reveal the owner and Who is hosting this” can show which company hosts the website.
3. Is the Websites domain (its internet address) a domain belonging to your country?
Similar to the point above the domain name can indicate if it is a local business. Each Country has an abbreviation for local domains, for instance Australian domains end in .com.au (Wikipedia has a list of country domain abbreviations). Most countries require that the registrant/owner of a domain name for that country actually is a resident or a registered business owner in that country. For instance a .com.au domain can only be held by an Australian resident or an Australian business.
Dealing with a local domain/business means that there is a good chance that you are covered by local consumer protection laws should something go wrong.
Be careful not to mistaken a website which manipulates its name to give the impression that it is a local domain – e.g www.EXAMPLE.com.au would be an Australian domain but www.EXAMPLEAU.com or www.EXAMPLE.au.com may not necessarily be Australian based*.
* Some websites owners register variations of their domain name to prevent overseas companies hijacking their domain name. For example at wigsonline.com.au we also own the domains wigsonline.au.com and wigsonlineau.com which will automatically redirect you to our main website.
4. Is the website SSL secured?
Ok Ill try to limit the tech garble, but basically if a site has a valid SSL certificate installed it means that personal information (Name, Address, Credit Card Number etc.) that you enter on the website is encrypted/encoded before the information is transmitted over the internet between your computer and the website. Therefore if anyone were to intercept the information they would not be able to be read the information.
Most Internet Browsers (Safari, Mozilla, Internet explorer etc..) will display a Padlock Icon some where on the page to indicate that the site is secure – see image below.
You can also use websites such as Digicert to confirm that the website has a valid SSL certificate.
5. What payment methods does the website offer?
Pay Pal is an easy way for ANY website to accept Credit Card Payments and this is fine as Pay Pal do have a Dispute resolution department if you have a problem with your order. However more established and reputable websites provide fully compliant secure credit card payments on their own website (i.e. they don’t redirect you to Pay Pal or another payment website).
If the website accepts Direct Deposit and Cheque / Money order then it is also an indication that they are located in the same country.Websites that only accept Western Union or Pay Pal for Credit Card payments are often based overseas as these methods are the easiest to setup a website without having to comply with the legal requirements of Banks.
NOTE: Western Union only provides a service for transferring money to a third party and would be no different to sending hard currency (i.e. cash). So if there is a problem with the order they will not be able to assist in recovering money or missing goods.
6. What Delivery Methods are used?
If the local postal service is used then you can safely assume that the goods are dispatched from within your Country. However if only international couriers are used then most likely the package is coming from overseas. Provided you receive your order and are happy with the item then there is nothing to worry about. However if you have to return the item to an overseas company the cost can be quite high and in some cases it is cheaper to simply “write off” the item, as you will have to cover the cost of returning the item, which may be more than you paid for the item in the first place.
It can also mean that you may have problems contacting them or tracking your order.
7. What about if I want to return the goods I purchased?
I mentioned returns policies in point six, which is also an important factor. Some companies can not allow returns because of the type of goods they are selling. For example products that carry a use by date, personal items such lingerie or chemically formulated products such as shampoo can’t be returned as they may have been contaminated before being returned.
If however the company does have a returns policy make sure you read it carefully to ensure you can comply to the requirements and accept any fees associated with returns.
Knowing you can return an item because it wasn’t quite what you thought it was or you chose the wrong size/style etc. Provides you with the comfort of knowing that you are dealing with a company that is interested in its customer’s satisfaction and not just a “quick buck”.
8. Take the time to read the FAQ, Store Policy and any other customer service page.
A good website will include answers to most of your questions in their information pages. The information pages will often give you details regarding Delivery Times, Delivery Methods, Delivery Charges, Payment Methods, Refund Policies and lots of other useful information to help you make the right product choice.
Even the way in which the information is written can sometimes indicate if the website is based in your country as poorly translated text doesn’t read as well as it should e.g. “items can be partial or full refund depends on the situation” should be written as “items can be partially or fully refunded depending ….”.
At the very least a good website should have a contact email or a contact form so that you can communicate with them via email. Although it is always reassuring to know you can phone a representative at the business if you have concerns.
9. Organic V’s Paid Advertising – Where are they listed in the Search results?
The adverts paid for by a business do not reflect the quality of their website or products as may be the case in the free (also called Organic) listings just below these adverts.
Less reputable sites will spend large amounts on advertising as consumers often click on the first three or four listings on the first page which means the websites will get enough sales to continue advertising – at least until their reputations spreads and consumers shy away from them.
Below is an screenshot of Search results for “Human Hair Wigs Australia” using the Google Australia Search page. The Notes added show where ads appear and where the Organic/Free listings begin.
As you can see the third listing from the very top (human hair Wigs Online – wigshowau.com) is paid advertising and is not an Australian based company even though we specifically added Australia to our search – clearly search engines are not always perfect.
A good idea is to use different search engines and compare the results – less reputable sites or scammers don’t always have the budget to advertise on all search engines.
10. How long has the website been established?
Scam sites come and go. The life of a bad business is often quite short so if the website has been established and operating for some time then there is a good chance that they are reputable. Although it can be difficult to determine how old a business is one good place to start is the “Wayback Machine” which is non-profit organization that archives websites over the years. So you can at least see how long ago the website was established.
11. Does it seem that the website’s prices are amazingly good?
Online prices can be a little cheaper but be cautious of prices that seem a fraction of what you find elsewhere on the Internet. If the prices for the items are low compared to other similar online stores that’s good. However if they are so low that it is to good to believe then most likely it is “too good to believe” and the alarm bells should start ringing.
If you find and item in one online store for $100 you can’t expect to buy the EXACT same item for $20 from another online store.
This can be a difficult point to determine as some less reputable websites often “borrow” images from legitimate websites so visually it appears that you are buying the same product – although the product that arrives often does not look like the image on the website.
12. If it looks like a rat and smells like a rat it probably is a rat.
Often our instincts warn us when something doesn’t seem quite right and we shouldn’t ignore these feelings. If you have some suspicions about a website then it would be wise to ask yourself a few of the questions mentioned in the points above and start doing a little research into the website before you place an order.
13. Do a search for the website you are looking at in relation to Scams.
It is often said that if a person has a good experience with a business they may tell one or two people, however if they have a problem they will tell everyone. The same applies to Internet based businesses, with the added advantage that complaints are easily found by searching the Internet.
There are many websites that offer advice about online scams for example Scamwatch which is a site set up by the Australian Government to advise people about all types of scams. These is also many sites that allow consumers to list their complaints against a particular business, Pissed Consumer is one example. Other websites such as Scam Adviser allow you to check the “Risk” rating of a particular website.
Email a Link to this article to your family & friends to help them shop safely online
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I have owned Wigs Online (www.wigsonline.com.au) for 7 years although the business has been established for more than 10 years.
Over the years I have seen many websites come and go and heard many complaints from people regarding poor experiences with other websites – especially in the past year.
So given my experience and knowledge in the online world I decided to write this article to help consumers protect themselves against unscrupulous people (I refuse to call them business people because the term implies some level of ethics).
The other reasons for writing this article are that we all rely on search engines to find the information or products we need online. However search engines struggle to deal with the volume of information and new websites popping up every minute. There is also no way that a search engine can tell if a website is reputable, fraudulent or somewhere in between when it first appears on the Internet. So in the short term the search engines rankings offer no real gauge as to the quality of that website.
A search engine will only start to lower the position a website appears in the search results as that website becomes less popular (is not clicked on/visited as often). Therefore fraudulent Websites can take a little while to disappear. So providing online shoppers with the relevant information needed to protect themselves might just save someone some heartache and disappointment.
©Wigs Online – www.wigsonline.com.au