Things to Look for as an Online Shopper (Part 1)

When it comes to shopping, I guess, I’m what you can call a traditionalist. I do prefer checking out the things I like in person. Normally, I like trying on shoes before taking out my wallet to pay for them. I love exploring boutiques, flea markets and, occasionally, ukay-ukay. I do, however, window-shop online every now and then, too. But with all the browsing and looking I’ve done, I still can’t bring myself to truly embrace online shopping. I reckon, a few bad experiences have caused me to be wary, enough not to drop the norm and truly espouse the new. I’m open to the idea but simply looking for the right place online that offers the very things I’m hoping to get from the whole shopping experience. As an online shopper, I’m looking for five (5) things that will convince me that it really is not that bad:

Payment options

The beauty of traditional shopping is that I don’t have to leave the store just to make a payment. From observation, most local online sellers would only offer bank deposits or GCash as a payment method. Why don’t they accept Paypal so that folks can pay using their credit cards? There were several instances wherein I was actually ready to make a purchase from an online seller but knowing I had to go to the bank within a set period to guarantee that my order will be placed and shipped is too much of a bother, with no time to spare really, that I’d simply resort to scheduling a trip to the mall on a weekend and shop there instead.

Buyer protection

One of the things I’ve noticed is the lack of real buyer protection in most of the local online stores I’ve come across. Money-back guarantee? Tracking your order online? The technology simply isn’t there just yet. It’s still the typical direct sale done over the Internet instead of the seller going door-to-door or placing orders over the phone because a friend’s friend is selling this or that. Buyers simply don’t have that option to truly shop at their leisure without fear of losing their money or the item bought. We can only rely on comments left on the seller’s page or facts or rumors that get passed on through the grapevine. Sadly, we can only trust that somehow, some way our country will get to experience having an Amazon or Etsy-type of shopping portal that can offer more security to buyers.

Seller-buyer communication

Though most sellers would boast of their availability in communicating with their customers, I doubt it if they’d be able to address the needs of their shoppers as they are about to hit that buy now button. Some customers do need a no-cost, real-time assistance. We can’t really say that all customers will be as Internet-savvy as the next person so it would be great if the seller can offer numerous ways on how the buyer can contact them like a toll-free number. If we’re talking about more than a thousand buyer-base, then the old email or sms communication feature won’t be as convenient to the buyer needing assistance nor to the seller who can’t be available 24/7 to assist.

There are a couple of more points to share and they’ll be on next week’s installment. See y’all next Wednesday!