Online Bargains
Online Bargains
Everyone loves a deal. It makes us feel good, especially when we do not have to pay the total retail price. However, as we will see today, not everything advertised as a good deal is a good buy, as some rather unscrupulous retailers can be undoubtedly shifty and will play the game as far as they can.
Authors note: Before we get into our short narrative, remember once you start your search for online bargains, you may be bombarded with offers from many different sources, some of which will be unsolicited, so be careful who you give your personal information to, and also watch out for what cookies are used on each website you visit.
Bottom line, a responsible online retailer like our host BargainBrute.com will always display a warning as to the cookies they are using when you visit their website. No warning? Then do not shop with them. An excellent example of a cookie warning is as follows “This site uses cookies to optimize your experience, analyze traffic, and remember your preferences.”
Be extra careful on special celebration days like “Black Friday,” which will be with us quite soon, the 27th of November. That day, as well as kicking off the Christmas season in North America, is a brilliant day to shop and at the same time find brilliant deals.
However, be extremely careful as that day does not just bring out the red hot deals. It always brings out the cybercriminals, all of who are searching for their deals, your personal information. They will use this either for their own purposes or more commonly, hand them over to other better-equipped cybercriminals who will destroy not only your financial credentials but in many circumstances your life.
So how do you vet whether a red hot deal is, in fact, a red hot deal? My advice, watch out for the “Bait and Switch Deals,” typically used within traditional brick and mortar retail outlets, but now becoming more and more popular within the online retail economy.
What is the Bait and Switch Deal? A straightforward idea where the retailer promotes a few standout red hot deals when, in reality, knowing that he or she has only a couple of them in stock.
Why? do they do this purely to entice someone from the online community to visit their website, knowing that once on their site, the average person, when finding out they no longer have the advertised product in stock, will and most do buy a different product while on the site?
However, even if shoppers do acquire the item they came for in the first place, some online retailers hope that they may be the type of person who is prone to impulse buying. This is true in both traditional brick-and-mortar stores and online bargain stores alike.
Do your homework before you buy: If you take anything away from this short narrative, then this paragraph is the one to take. Do your homework, and I mean on everything, which the retailer is, how long they have been in business, read all the reviews you can find, remembering that some rather unscrupulous online retailers either write their own reviews or pay someone to write them.
Once you have finalized your research, then it is list-making time. Create a concrete list that includes everything you want to buy. This is essential as this will help to get rid of that retail illness “compulsive buying.” A sickness that I am sure we have all gone through in the past also makes it much simpler to browse through different online websites to compare prices.
Authors note: Making a list may not help you avoid every item you see while shopping, but it will help. However, it has been proven in scientific research to aid you in your decision-making abilities. For example, in a traditional brick-and-mortar retail outlet, decision fatigue influences impulse purchases, especially when a person is subjected to countless displays of products. These displays are typically placed at the ends of each row of shelves. (my advice is to never buy from these end of aisle promotions)
Bottom line, once the shopper has completed his or her shopping, they reach the checkouts they have become putty in the hands of the retailer. Hence, in most grocery stores, retailers will promote sweets, snacks, and anything else the retailer wants to get rid of next to the cashout.
Authors note: In the past, I spent a very long time in property development which included retail, so I can assure you the above is true.
Another snippet of information is that certain individual restaurant owners and franchises used to ensure that all the seats and tables in the restaurants were red a few years ago.
Why? Simply because the color red causes a person to want more. Hence the red tables, and as research suggests, red also makes a person feel hot. Therefore the color of the seats and tables was not just for décor. They were placed there for phycological reasons. They promoted the person to order more food from the sometimes red menu and then, once eaten, vacate the red chairs to make room for the next customer. In other words, the owners did not want any lingerers.
