Online Deal Shopping Hacks
Most things you can buy online, you can find a better price for. I get some small satisfaction (thanks consumerism) for finding a deal.
Below is my approach to finding the best possible price for what I'm shopping for (which is generally clothes). If you have 5 minutes to spare, with a little hunting you can generally get a discount.
Once you found an item that you want to buy....
- Search for It Elsewhere - Enter the product name with and without quotes (for a related and exact match) within Google and see if other retailers are selling it for less. Sites like Poshmark and Ebay also might have the item in new condition for less. See what other retailers sell that brand and see what discounts/sales they may have.
- Find The Brand's Deals - Check out the brand's social presence (Instagram is the best right now) for promo codes and sales. Often if it's your first purchase with a brand there is a pop up for a discount for signing up for their newsletter. Do it on another email address if you have shopped there before and visit the site on an incognito browser to find the pop up. You can also search Instagram by hashtags to see if an Influencer has a personal promo code.
- Add Chrome Extensions for Promo Codes - Honey or CamelCamelCamel (for Amazon only) are examples of extensions that automatically try all the active promo codes they know of when you are checking out. This is the easiest tool, though it doesn't always find an active promo code.
- Search for Promo Codes - Google the brand and "promo code" to find sites like RetailMeNot that also collect promo codes. 50% of the time the promo code won't work for you, but it's sweet when you find one that does! Sometimes I go to the top 3 hits for this search to see if different sites have different promo codes. Depending on the brand I might add another search term like "podcast" if they often sponsor a podcast and therefore in a podcast show notes might have a specific promo code.
- Abandon Your Cart - Start the check-out process by providing your email and clicking next. Leave the tab open for a while (an hour to a day) then close. Retailers often within a few hours to days will email you reminding you to complete your purchase and sometimes give promo codes to encourage you to buy it.