Tips to shop more effective and money-saving online shopping
In this article I want to share with you tips about money-saving online shopping that I collected throughout the years.
Small comments before we start:
- All the tips are generic to product type. You can try any of the advice to buy clothes and accessories, home goods, electronics, your choice.
- Tips are based on the EU market. Even though tips are collected based on shopping in the EU, they probably can be applicable to your local area as well.
1. Choose goods from new collections, buy them at seasonal sales.
Now most of the stores have apps where you can browse assortment and save favourites. You can start without a rush by selecting items you want to buy and save them to favourites, but actually buy them a couple of months later when sales start. Brands have big sales twice in a year:
- Summer sale:
- starts around end of June (can slightly differ per country)
- sale of spring-summer collections
- Winter sale:
- starts around end of December (can slightly differ per country)
- sale of autumn-winter collections
If you don’t want to miss sales there are ways to stay updated:
- You can subscribe to the store’s newsletter and you will receive an email about sales start.
- You can use tools designed especially to monitor sales, price changes and updates on websites, for example:
- Web application https://visualping.io/
- Google Chrome plugin https://www.karmanow.com/
2. Buy one year ahead.
At the winter sale you can buy winter items for next year with a good discount. For example it is beneficial to buy expensive clothes like winter jackets and shoes. Same way at summer sale buy clothes and accessories for the next summer.
3. Buy not in season.
You can buy season specific goods during non-season time with a great discount. For example: Winter jackets. Good winter outerwear can be quite expensive, but you can find it with a reduced price during summer time (see screenshot below, date of the screenshot June 2024)
Home shopping. Garden furniture is sold throughout the year, but you can buy it with a nice discount during winter.
4. Prioritise expensive items during sales.
If you have an extensive shopping list that consists of both expensive big purchases and smaller low-cost items - focus on buying expensive items first. This approach will save you more money during sales. Low-cost items can be bought both during season without discounts and during season sales, but won’t create such a big price difference.
Side note, advice to buy expensive items first is about expensive items that you really need and would buy anyway (for example big home purchases like fridge). If you would like to buy luxury items that you can live without (like branded purse or expensive watch) - please plan this purchase according to your financial situation and not based on this advice.
5. Google for a voucher/discount code for the website you are buying from.
Often you can find vouchers for 10%, 20% discount for a specific shop on discount aggregator websites. For example: Google “h&m voucher code”
6. Buy from the store’s online outlets.
More and more stores start to have Outlets to sell past-years collections. You can find nice items there, but at a much reduced price. To find outlets just google [shop name] outlet. Examples of outlets: Zalando → Zalando outlet Mango → Mango outlet MediaMarkt → MediaMarkt outlet
7. Buy new clothes with tags on second hand sites and marketplaces.
Sounds a bit confusing but often on resell websites people sell new clothes with tags at a lower price.
8. Buy second hand clothes on resell sites and marketplaces.
If you are okay with buying second hand clothes you can find a lot of nice items there.
9. Amazon shopping: compare product range and price in neighbouring countries.
Depending on where you live sometimes Amazon in the neighbouring country can have more options and lower prices than your local Amazon. For example: Amazon in the Netherlands has smaller product range and sometimes higher prices compared to Amazon in Germany. And Amazon in Germany delivers to the Netherlands, which means that you can expand your product search.
This recommendation mentions neighbouring countries because they will most likely deliver to your location. But you can always look for Amazon in countries that are more far away from your country - advice here would be to check first if they deliver to your area.
Thank you! Shop effectively and have fun 😀