How to get the best deals while shopping online

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Online shopping in India is expected to reach $111.40 billion by 2025. Shopping online has taken off in India because of the convenience—variety to choose from, delivery to home, easy returns and great prices. On the last bit, there are ways you can bag better deals and save money when shopping online. Below is a list of tips and tricks.

Using coupons 

One of the easiest ways to save money when shopping online is to use discount coupons or promo codes. Most websites share coupon codes when you sign-up as well as via their newsletter.

Also Read: Festive shopping | Should you use credit cards or buy now pay later schemes?

Plus, you can get coupons from your bank as well when you use credit cards. So keep an eye out for such coupons. Alternatively, you can use coupon curating websites such as CouponDunia, Grabon, CouponRaja etc. These websites list coupons for the majority of e-commerce websites along with the success rate of the coupon as well.

Get cashback

Cashback websites are a great way to earn back your money when shopping online. First, head to CashKaro or GoPaisa and sign-up for a free account. After that, you just need to visit the cashback website and use their link to visit your favourite online shopping websites.

Depending on the collaboration between the cashback site and the e-commerce site, you will get a certain amount of cashback for your purchases. Once you have accumulated enough cashback amount, you can choose to transfer it back to your account or use it to purchase gift cards.

Look for extra discounts.

A few years ago, online websites used to have a single significant sale event in the year where products were offered at great prices. Now, these kinds of sales happen every few months, which is excellent for the customers.

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During these sales, products are offered at lowered costs, and on top of that, you can get extra discounts by using the credit card of specific banks. So keep an eye for which bank credit cards offer additional discounts and use those to make your purchases on the next sale.

Compare prices

Have you ever made a purchase on one e-commerce website only to find out that the same product was available at a lower price on another website? Thankfully, there are various price comparison websites already available, using which you can track and compare the price of a particular product across known shopping websites. For example, head to MySmartPrice, Buyhutke, or CompareRaja and type in the product you want to purchase in the search box. The comparison website will show you the product's current price across websites such as Amazon India, Flipkart, Tata Cliq, etc.

Use Browser Extensions

Almost all major browsers today offer the option to install handy extensions to help you save money, compare prices or find a relevant coupon. A lot of coupons websites and price comparison websites offer their own extension as well.

Here is a quick list of our must-have extensions:

1. Honey – The extension automatically searches for all the available coupons for the website you are on quickly. Once it finds the best coupon, it is automatically applied to your cart to get the best price.

2. Keep – This one works only for the Amazon India website. It shows a price history chart of the product you are currently browsing to see if the current price is higher than usual or at its lowest price ever.

3. MakhiChoose – This is a price comparison extension that shows you a small box with prices from different online websites for the product you are viewing. You can easily compare the prices and then purchase your product from the website offering the lowest price.