Online Shopping has gained a lot of popularity in India over the past 4-5 years.
People have started shopping online instead of buying offline.
There are various reasons for doing so, better prices, better variety ranges at one place, one can shop any time of the day or night, home delivery, exchanges and returns available with no extra charges, and not forget that people have access to those brands whose stores are not available in smaller cities and towns.
With so many advantages of buying online, there are a lot of ways to save extra money online with almost zero extra effort.
Amazon Prime Day is around the corner for this year, and so it’s time to save extra money while shopping online. In this article, we’ll discuss certain tips one can follow to save money online.
Online Shopping Hacks that help you save money:
Make a Shopping List:
Online Sites are a sea of products.
There are millions of products available, and aimlessly scrolling the shopping sites won’t help.
It will just kill time, so one should make a shopping list before actually shopping.
This will help you to save time and explore more on the products that you’re looking for, and then you can explore for the best deals on the same.
Hence, saving both money and cracking the best deals available.
Compare Product Prices:
Same product can be found on different shopping sites.
For example, if one is thinking of purchasing a pair of Levis jeans online, the user searches for the same, chooses the jeans that he likes, and then he can search for the prices of the same product that the various sites are offering.
There may be a chance that the same pair of jeans is found at a lesser price on Myntra than that on Amazon or Flipkart.
Each shopping site is best known for one of their products like for example Myntra is best known for clothing, Flipkart is best known for electronics, Amazon is best known for home decor and grocery, and so on.
So mostly the sites that are best known for the product, offer the best price and more variety.
Always compare the prices on various sites offered for the same product before making a decision.
There are various browser extensions available to do so, which compare the prices of the products on various shopping sites, making your task easier and less time-consuming.
Cashback, Discount offers, and Coupon Codes:
Usually the banks have tie-ups with various shopping sites and they offer instant discounts and even no-cost EMIs.
The banks offer instant discounts if the user uses the bank’s credit or debit card while shopping. I recently purchased clothes from Myntra and on minimum shopping of Rs 2500, I got an instant discount of Rs 200 when I use HDFC’s credit card as an add-on while the discounts remain intact.
How cool is that?
These days shopping sites also provide coupon codes before they launch their end-of-season sales or festive sales.
Myntra gives you bonus points if you share the details about the upcoming sale with others via their app.
You can earn a maximum of Rs 500 which you can use while shopping from their site during the sale.
Similarly, there are various offers available for different shopping sites which allows you to save even more while shopping.
Few shopping sites also provide weekly scratch cards and spin games to try your luck and you might get some coupons that you can use later while shopping.
There are tie-ups with UPI payment apps like Paytm, amazon pay, phonepe pay, etc as well.
They offer instant cashback if you use their mode of payment while purchasing.
You should read the terms and conditions and should decide which offer provides the most discount and then accordingly you should make the decision.
A few things to remember:
The instant discount should be most preferred.
Check the maximum business working days in which the cashback will be credited.
The lesser the business working days, the better it is, and that should be preferred if the cashback amount is the same.
Check for the location of transfer, i.e. whether it will be credited in your wallet or directly into your bank account.
There might be a difference when purchased from the shopping site and shopping app.
Compare the price for the same.
Check if you can club more than one offer together to get the maximum discount.
Shop using Credit Card Points:
The banks provide offers for a certain amount of time for the minimum transaction.
These offers can be provided in the form of a coupon, free movie tickets, and so on.
Keep track of these offers while deciding the mode of transaction.
Set Price Alerts:
You must have noticed that a particular product offers a 50% discount and by the time you decide to purchase it, it either gets out of stock or the discount drops.
Set an alert for the prices of the products you are interested in buying. There are various browser extensions as well for the same.
Avoid giving the Shipping Charges:
Almost every shopping site provides free shipping after a purchase of a minimum amount.
Avoid giving an extra shipping charge, rather try purchasing in such a way that the minimum amount required for free shipping is met.
This can be done by making a shopping list so that you don’t skip a product while purchasing and end up ordering the missed out product with an add-on shopping fee.
Amazon provides free shipping for Prime members.
This requires the member to submit a yearly fee, but it does provide a lot of benefits of being a prime member.
Check Product Review:
Some products are not available for return or exchange. Do read the product reviews before making a decision.
Also, there might be cases when you buy multiple products, and you are applicable for some offer provided by the bank, but then when the product arrives, you don’t like the product and decide to return it.
So then you no longer meet the bank offer and the refund you received is a net balance after reducing the discount you received earlier. Reading product reviews do matter in these cases.
Hacks to Save Money on particular shopping sites Like Amazon, Flipkart:
Shopping sites like Amazon India, Flipkart, and Myntra rule the Indian market when it comes to online shopping.
We mostly end up ordering products from these sites, and so we should know the specific hacks for these sites to save money.
Amazon India
Amazon India has the biggest share in the Indian market when it comes to online shopping. It has products of various brands and a huge variety.
It has products from clothing, home decor, kitchen and bathroom essentials, grocery, jewelry, and the list goes on. You can save a lot of money while shopping from Amazon by following these hacks:
Prime Membership: Amazon provides a special discount and free shipping for their prime members. It provides prime membership for a year, and you can order endless products in that duration from
Amazon without giving any add-on shipping fee. It also provides a wide variety of content(movies, series, documentaries) to be watched online exclusively for their prime members.
It also provides free music via Amazon Music for its prime members. Not only this, the sale window opens for the prime members early before the non-prime members, and you can grab a lot of really cool deals and offers during the sales.
ICICI Amazon Credit Card: If you apply for this credit card, you get an add-on discount of 3% for non-prime members and a 5% add-on discount for prime members. It’s quite easy to apply, and it can be applied by just making a few clicks and linking your PAN card.
Amazon Pay: Amazon pay provides great offers for doing payments for electricity, landline bills, phone recharges, and so on.
You can save some extra money while paying those bills via Amazon pay.
Flipkart
Flipkart rules the electronic market when it comes to online shopping in India. There are most of the phones that are just available online on Flipkart and nowhere else.
There are great bank offers available as well which provide instant discounts on the purchase.
Flipkart Plus: Flipkart provides 10 points for spending every Rs100. You can use these Flipkart points while purchasing next time.
You can also buy coupons using these Flipkart points which can be used during your next purchase.
Myntra
Myntra rules the clothing industry in the Indian market. It provides great deals and offers on it.
Some of the add-on benefits it provides are:
Book Early Slots on Sale: Myntra allows you to book early slots if you are a member of myntra insider.
You have hands-on deals and offers before the actual sale starts.
Myntra Insider: On every purchase Myntra gives you certain points which you can redeem in form of Myntra coupons or on some other apps like Zoomin.
Refer and Earn: If you refer someone to install Myntra, on their first successful purchase you get a referral amount which you can use for your next purchase.
Nyakaa
Nyakaa provides a variety of makeup products. The best part about this site is that the products are original and authentic.
Nykaa provides various offers:
Payment mode: Nykaa provides various cashback offers and instant discounts while ordering for a minimum amount. Plus, it provides free delivery.
Sales: Sales are quite frequent on Nykaa. Keep an eye on it, and you’re good to go to save a little extra money.
How to save money on online food shopping
Zomato
Food industry has also gained a lot of popularity online in recent years. Zomato provides great deals and offers. Some of the are:
Zomato Gold: This allows you to get discounts on the dine-in and takeaways if a certain restaurant has a tie-up with zomato gold.
Most of the restaurants provide the zomato gold facility, which is quite amazing.
Discounts: Zomato offers certain add-on discounts and coupon codes on certain occasions like IPLs, festive season, and so on.
Payment Offers: Zomato has tie-ups with Paytm, Amazon pay, etc. which provide add-on discounts and cashback if you use their mode of the transaction while the purchase.
Swiggy
Swiggy is yet another infamous site to order food online in India. It provides some exciting subscription plans.
The membership program of swiggy super currently lies in over 80 major cities. There are 3 types of subscription plans which swiggy offers. They are:
Binge Plan: The binge plan will give you unlimited free deliveries. How cool is that? Not only this, it will provide buy one, get one offer on dishes from partner restaurants. The plan is for Rs329 per month.
Bite Plan: The byte plan is being priced at Rs 169 per month, and it will give 10 free deliveries per month and endless buy one, get one offer from only big partners restaurant.
P.S. This is my favorite plan, last time I saved 265INR while ordering food using swiggy app.
Bit Plan: The bit plan is being priced at Rs 89 per month. It provides five free deliveries per month and is targeted at new customers.
Enjoy occasional surprises with super delights and save money.
Bigbasket
Bigbasket is the online grocery store which delivers products to your doorstep. In the current pandemic, bigbasket has become quite famous among people to order home essentials and grocery online.
It has great deals and offers which help you save money while purchasing.
BB Daily: It has also started a new service called BB Daily. It delivers products to you on a daily basis like milk, dairy products and so on.
The concept of this service is to deliver products at your doorstep before 7 in the morning. You can save money by subscribing the products on a daily basis rather than in bulk.
For example, let’s subscribe to a product by selecting the product, choosing its frequency, quantity and starting delivery date and the end delivery date.
You can also control the subscription whenever you want. So basically it will deliver products on a daily basis, you just have to pay Rs 1.
I hope this article helps you out to save some extra money. Happy Shopping 🙂
