How to Prepare for Black Friday Online Shopping
Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year. Why deal with crowds and lines, when you can take advantage of the great deals, while sitting at home in your sweats?
This year, get your computers or smart phones charged up, and plan to do your shopping online! These 7 tips will ensure you get the best bang for your buck while online shopping this Black Friday.
1. Update All Shopping Accounts
This step will help save time. Go to websites like Amazon, Rakuten, etc and update your shipping and billing information. This way, the purchasing process is an easy 2-clicks.
2. Use a Black Friday Deal Tracker
Black Friday has no standard deal announcements online when the sales go live. It’s hard to keep track of them, so it’s best to find a tracker that works for you. GottaDeal has an online Black Friday tracker that tracks all sale details for online retailers and you can also receive email notifications. Other sites like FatWallet and SlickDeals also provide you with deals easy to sift through.
3. Prepare Shopping Carts Ahead of Time
If you already know exactly what you want to buy this year, go ahead and fill your shopping cart. Not only will this save you time, but this will ensure you get the item you want before it sells out. While some of your items may not go on sale, the ones that will, will already be in your cart ready for purchase!
4. Use Only One Credit Card
In 2014, customer data was stolen from huge retailers like Target, eBay, and AT&T. Data breaches are more common around the holidays, which means you need to be extra cautious when making purchases. This is why you should only use one credit card, especially one with fraud protection!
5. Disable Browser Location Tracking
Private browsing modes can help you get better deals. Some retailers use browser data to determine your geographic location, and using this information to serve different prices to you depending on where you live. Basically, where you live could mean higher prices!
Here is how to disable location tracking on your browser:
In Chrome, go to Settings > Privacy > Content Settings > Location > Do not allow any site to track my physical location.
In Firefox, type about: config into the URL bar, search for the geo-enabled option, and set its value to False.
In Opera, go to Settings > Websites > Location > Do not allow any site to track my physical location.
6. Be Prepared to Log Off Empty-Handed
While brick-and-mortar stores prepare for large crowds by bulking up the staff, online retailers are not always equipped to deal with overloaded servers, inaccurate numbers, wrong deals, etc. Be prepared for this possibility, and try not to be too upset if you end up logging off empty-handed.
7. Don’t Forget About Cyber Monday
Black Friday is the more well known shopping day, but Cyber Monday doesn’t get as much credit as it deserves. It is more relevant for the technology-minded people who enjoy making their purchases from home. While Black Friday is better for big-ticket items, Cyber Monday deals are better when you are trying to purchase a lot of smaller items.
Overall, Black Friday can be stressful in-store or online. As long as you go into the experience prepared and ready-to-go, you should be able to navigate through the stress and purchase the perfect gifts!
