Online commerce is gaining momentum. More and more people prefer to order goods online rather than spend 5-6 hours jogging around the shops located in different parts of the city. However, for virtual shopping to be fun and not cause problems, you need to choose the right seller. Following the five rules, you can make profitable purchases on sites, saving time, money and nerves.
Store Reliability Check
Even if the inscription on the page indicates that the goods remained in stock in a single copy, and the numbers on the counter inexorably count the last minutes before the end of the promotion, you should not get into the excitement and quickly place the order. Before making a purchase, you need to make sure that the store is trustworthy.
The simplest and most affordable methods for every customer:
- Search for reviews - if the online store has existed for a long time (at least six months), it will not be difficult to find online customer opinions on the service and quality of the goods. To trust those reviews that are published on the store’s website and on its pages in social networks is not worth it, especially in those cases when they are completely positive.
- Visual assessment of the site - the presence of grammatical errors in the text, a huge amount of third-party advertising, the lack of a clear structure should alert the buyer.
- Price comparison - if a store offers goods at a price that is 30–50% lower than the market average, it is safe to say that this is a hoax. After placing an order, events can develop in different ways - for example, the buyer will be informed that the indicated cost is no longer relevant, and the information on the site just did not have time to update; or the ordered product will turn out to be a low-quality fake. It is also highly likely that the site is used by scammers as bait and after payment the buyer will not receive anything. There are also "ghost sites" - abandoned by the owners, they somehow miraculously fall into the issuance of search engines. They can be identified by the news section - if more than a year has passed since the date of the last publication, there is every reason to believe that this store has ceased operations.
- Critical assessment of information - statements that confiscated goods are being sold on the site should alert the potential buyer. All goods that were seized by customs officers, after a court decision on the case becomes the property of the state, and their sale occurs exclusively at auction. And the so-called confiscated goods sold on the Internet often turn out to be low-grade goods from China.
- Obtaining information from the FSN database is relevant for residents of the Russian Federation. Before buying expensive items in small and little-known stores, you should contact the manager and specify the name of the legal entity that produces the trade (for example, Soroka-Vorona FLP or Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich Private Enterprise). Further, on the website https://egrul.nalog.ru/index.html, you need to request an extract from the registry in order to verify the existence of such a business entity.
Contact details search
Most often, contact information is located at the top of the page - next to the name of the store. Sometimes it can be found below - in the same place as links to the most important sections for customers “Payment” and “Delivery”. And only some stores indicate their data for communication in a specially designated place for this - in the "Contacts" section.
It’s good if the online store has several ways to communicate with customers, for example:
- Email;
- accounts in social networks;
- phone number.
Even better, if the site also contains the address of the office where you can drive up to see and pick up the goods.
If the administration has not left any contact information or you can contact the store only by e-mail, this is a reason to be wary - fraudsters usually work this way.
Communication with the manager
Before you make, and even more so pay for the order, you should contact the store manager by calling the number indicated on the website. During the conversation, you can clarify the price of the goods, the date of dispatch, compliance with photos and text descriptions, as well as discuss other important points for the buyer.
If the manager does not know the product well and cannot give specific answers to questions, it is better to postpone the purchase and look for a similar thing on other trading floors.
Risk assessment - reliable and not very payment methods
As a rule, online merchants ship goods after full payment. This alarms buyers who are not always willing to risk their finances. However, there is nothing to worry about in advance payments - you just need to choose a legally operating store and transfer money through a bank or through special payment acceptance systems. This will make it easy to prove the fact of payment if there are any misunderstandings.
Good | poorly |
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Online payment through payment acceptance systems (Assist, Interkassa, OnlyMoney, PayWeb and others). You cannot connect these systems to the site without providing documents. Accordingly, in a conflict situation there will be no problems in order to establish the identity of the seller and to prove the transfer of money. | Direct transfer to a bank card. With this method of payment, it is difficult to prove that the amount transferred to the stranger was payment for the goods. Significant evidence will be required - for example, correspondence with the seller, where he transfers his details and shows willingness to send goods to the buyer. |
Transfer money to a bank account. If the store accepts payment in this way, it means that it works legally. | Payment for electronic wallets (Qiwi, WebMoney, Yandex.Money and others). It is no secret that accounts in electronic payment systems can be registered with dummies or using fake documents, or even completely anonymously. In this case, it will be practically impossible to prove the fact of payment and recover illegally misappropriated money from the recipient. |
Payment by cash or card at pickup. The buyer can make sure that the product is of high quality and meets its expectations. | A transfer indicating the card details (number, expiration date, three-digit CVV / CVC code), performed directly on the store’s website. Payment in this way is possible only on the sites of large, well-known trading floors. A prerequisite for payment is a secure connection to the server (via SSL protocol). Otherwise, the payment data will fall into the hands of fraudsters, who probably will not miss the chance to empty someone else's card. |
But beloved by many cash on delivery is not always a protection against fraudulent actions of the seller. According to the rules, the postal employee has the right to open the parcel for inspection if the sender made an inventory of the attachment. If there is no such inventory, the buyer will receive the package and will be able to check its contents only after payment.
Learning store rules: how are conflict situations resolved?
- Since many unforeseen situations happen in life, it is important to know in advance what the buyer can count on if he is sent the wrong product that he ordered, or if the thing turns out to be defective, will have a different color or size.
- Responsible sellers always post on the website a list of rules by which an exchange or refund is made, warranty service is provided. In order not to be left “overwhelmed,” when it turns out that the store is not ready to return the money for a down jacket that was seamy on the third day of socks, you need to carefully study the rules established by the store.
Summarizing all of the above, I want to recall the main principle that all customers of online stores should be guided by: trust, but verify. Before placing an order, you need to scroll through the site, evaluate its appearance and structure, compare prices with other outlets, make sure that the seller offers a safe payment method, communicate with the manager. Only after that, if nothing is in doubt, you can press the treasured button "Buy".