I love shopping.  I really love shopping online.  Here’s a few things I’ve learned while shopping online.  The good and the bad.

1. Shop at e-commerce sites that have an excellent return policy.  I’m not simply talking about “we’ll take it back if you ship it back” – I’m talking about a return policy that covers all the worst case scenarios.  “I don’t like it.”  “It’s the wrong size.”  The no-questions-asked and return-shipping-included return policy.  Nice.  The downside of these policies is that the purchase price may actually be more expensive than sites that have very restrictive policies.  The reasoning is obvious; if they don’t have to deal with “I don’t like it” returns their costs are far less than those sites that do accept those types of fickle returns.
2. Look for online shopping sites that include shipping expenses.  Lots of e-commerce sites will pay for shipping if your purchase reaches a specific dollar value.  Be warned though.  These sites love to tease you along to purchase more and more until you achieve the dollar amount.  This is the ultimate in impulse buying.
3. Make sure they will ship to your address.  Some foreign (American) online stores will not ship to Canada.  Weird.
4. Try and shop with local online stores.  You may be surprised how many local ‘brick and mortar’ shops have an online presence.  Some times their online price is better than their in store price, and, you can pick-up!
5. Use a specific credit card for online purchases.  The credit card I have for online shopping has a (relatively) low limit.

These are the most important points I wanted to share about online shopping.  There’s more to learn and lots of shopping to do!