Shopping Smart Online: Easy Tips to Save Money!

So until recently I was a starving student, now I'm just a starving unemployed person looking for a job...in Southern California (good luck me). In order to save money it really helps if I don't splurge online for every cute pair of shoes or adorable dresses I see. I rarely pay full price for clothes I see online....I always hunt for the greatest deal. Here's a few of my little tips:

1) Always COMPARE prices!: So you see a little dress online, the price seems reasonable so you decide to get it...wait! There are chances you can find it cheaper somewhere else. (Unless you want to support that particular business). If you know the designer/brand of the item you want, then here's a lovely little website I use: www.shopstyle.com . Type in the designer name up top, like for instance I recently bought a dress from "Jack by BB Dakota" . It will have a lot of the designers items from different websites and will show you the different prices. My favorite part of this website is that you can be alerted when a certain item is on sale, so if you can wait you just might pay off. This website of course doesn't have every brand/designer in the world, but it seems to have a lot that I like.

2) Follow on Facebook: A good way to know about sales before everyone else is Facebook. I follow all my favorite online stores and even designers. It's also a good way to try to win some merchandise or gift cards. For example a brand that I like, "Tulle", had a contest through Facebook, it was very simple and only about 30 people entered. It was for $100 store credit and they were picking 2 winners. I entered and Dan also entered for me (an advantage of having a BF :)). Neither of us won, but that's not bad odds! Lots of stores are always doing contests like this. Even if you're not one of those people to take the time to enter contests, it's worth it enough just to get heads up on sales.
 Tulle's FB page


3)Most stores have promos/discounts for new customers: This one I like.... a lot. A lot of clothing websites offer a discount if it is your first time buying from them. If you can't find anything on the actual website saying so, then email them. I did this when I wanted to buy the "Jack by BB Dakota dress" I was talking about earlier, from www.revolveclothing.com (that was the website that had the best deal on a dress that I found using the technique in #1). They have a special deal that if you email them after you buy your first item(s) and you are a first time customer, they will give you 30%! They credit the amount back to your card.

So yesterday I used this technique and got a dress originally priced $54 for $24 (plus free shipping!). I waited till it was on sale. I price compared to find where it was being sold for the least amount of money. Then I emailed the website and got an additional 30%. Feels good to save money :)

Photo

This was the dress I got. Not bad for 24 dollars!

If you have any useful tips, be sure to share!

Good luck bargain hunting!-Megan