6 Pricing and Offer Tricks by Online Shops You Should Be Aware of As a Shopper

The computer and the internet have changed the way a lot of people go about their daily lives. But one of the biggest uses of the computer in the home today is online shopping. With that said, there are many places you will see on the web where you can purchase just about anything. However, some sites will use slick little gimmicks to get you to buy from them. If you choose to shop from online stores and auction sites, here are some tricks to watch out for so you don’t get ripped off at the end of the deal.

1. Perhaps the biggest trick on the auction sites is an extremely low starting bid for an item. If you are bidding on a brand new item that should be around $50, and you see it being offered for a starting bid of a penny, the very first thing you should do is look at the item description, the pictures, and then at the shipping cost. Often times you will see a shipping charge of $50. So the price was a gimmick. They are getting your money anyway.

2. A widely used trick is a free shipping offer. Many sites will offer free shipping on orders over $25 dollars, which one of the major auction sites does. However, be careful of who you are buying from. If you order directly from the auction site, there is no problem. You order your $25 minimum and it is shipped for free. But if you order a few different items from several different sellers, often times the order won’t qualify for that free shipping. If you are rushing through the order process and click “place order” or whatever, you may not realize until much later just how much you actually paid for shipping.

3. While some sites offer free shipping on orders at a certain amount, there are a couple out there who will email you with a free shipping message, which you click on. It takes you to their site, but when you have put the items in your cart that you want to order for that $25, you click to review order and suddenly your minimum order needs to be $40. If you were clicking through and not paying attention to shipping, you would wind up paying some ridiculous shipping fee because they used a sneaky little trick to get you to their site.

4. There is always just the blatantly simple overpricing of a product. Especially around holiday time. Let’s just say you wanted to purchase a designer handbag, and you had been looking at it for months awhile back. Well, you decide it’s going to be your holiday gift to yourself. You remember it cost $259. In fact, you get an invitation to their holiday sale, so you click the link to their website, but now the bag is $329 “with free shipping.” That is a standard, old-fashioned markup gimmick to make it seem like you are getting a good deal with the free shipping, when in fact you are being taken advantage of.

5. Another way companies will get you to buy their products is by offering a “risk free” trial of their product. If you send them $59.95 down payment on this exercise machine, they will ship it to you. You can use it for a “full 30 days” and if you don’t like it, you can send it back–no questions asked. That is not quite correct. Your card will be charged the $59.95, plus the exorbitant shipping or handling fee. If you don’t have it back to them by 30 days from the date you ordered–NOT received–your card will be charged the additional $400 plus tax. And when you call to tell them you wish to return the item, you will be lucky if anyone answers the phone.

6. When you order parts for any type of vehicles, from cars to boats to ATVs, you always try to shop for the best price and the best shipping rates to keep your costs down. So you order from Joe Smith Parts, you pay for the parts and the shipping, and you get your parts. However, it turns out you don’t need everything you ordered, so you want to make a return. No big deal, right? But in the fine print on the packing slip/invoice, it states that no orders will be accepted without a RMA number, which is a Return Materials Authorization. So, you email them at the address provided and you hear nothing back. Not only that, but you will also be hit with a 20% restocking fee for the order. So you paid for shipping to get the order, now you have to pay again to ship it back, and they are going to charge a 20% restocking fee off the parts–and that’s only if they respond to your request for the RMA in the first place!

There are many ways to be ripped off on the internet today when you are looking to shop. Be aware of where you are, what the fine print says, and watch your order totals and your shopping cart quantities. And always be sure to check your shipping!

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