The rule of capitalism has always been that if you have a problem, someone out there has a product for it. They also say that the key to a successful economy is healthy competition, although the dawn of the internet has taken that to an extreme.
Nowadays, even the most casual search for a solution will likely bring up dozens of results from a wide variety of suppliers both local and national. While having a big selection to choose from can be great, it also means that choosing one particular offering seems to get harder every day. Luckily for you, we’ve put together some top tips and advice to help you navigate the sea of online businesses.
Specialism
This first point depends very much on what you’re looking for exactly: quality or a bargain. For every product and service, you can almost certainly find an online business that specializes in only that product or perhaps a small handful of related products. If a company does only one thing, you can generally bet that they’ll both do it well and also likely charge a premium for it, like 4inbandana are doing for niche dog fashion.
On the other hand, there are plenty of generalist businesses along the lines of Amazon or Alibaba which can provide all kinds of products, usually with a lower price tag, but without any guarantee of quality. There may well be some great value products in the listing but finding a reliable one is a lot harder.
The rule of thumb is that if the product you need must be high-quality, such as with critical components or safety gear, going direct to a specialist is important. It may be pricier but you know exactly what you’re getting.
Reviews
Word of mouth has always been, and probably always will be, any company’s biggest selling factor both for the good and the bad. To take the example of Amazon again, by this point, it’s a household name and has almost become a word meaning online shopping in its own right. On the other hand, companies that get a bad reputation can be sunk overnight in some cases.
This is why online reviews are so important to check out before using any service. However, what’s more important is the source of the review you’re reading. For best results, sites that have a mixture of customer and expert reviews like TrustPilot work well, although if you looking at something specific like streaming services or online casinos, there are more specific sites that work even better. In the latter case, a site like CasinoReviews serves better as they are able to go into fine details about things like games on offer, payment methods, and so on, but also still give real customer feedback.
Always be careful with sites that only offer customer reviews or only expert reviews, as you will often find them skewed one way or another.
Vouchers
What’s the one thing better than finding exactly what you need at a good price? Finding a voucher that then lets you get a discount on that! The world of online vouchers is an extensive and complex one with dozens of sites out there dedicated to hunting down all the vouchers scattered across the Internet on all kinds of different products. It can range from spa days to garden furniture and everything in between; virtually any product out there can have a voucher active at any time.
One of the best services out there for discount hunters is the browser extension from PayPal called Honey. Rather than the user finding a voucher and then heading to the product, Honey finds vouchers for whatever product you happen to be looking at at the time. There are a lot of other features behind it as well, such as tracking products for price drops, cash-back potential on certain items, and its own product search service on their official site.
With all of the above tips at your disposal, finding the right product for you at the best value will become multiple times easier, so get out there and start hunting!
