Bargain-hungry shoppers are heading to the web in their droves and Christmas promises to be the biggest period yet for shopping online. However, many of us still don’t know how to find the best deals, or how to tell whether a website is genuine.
Used well, the internet will save you time and money, and offers many services you won’t find on the high street. And as long as you follow a few simple rules it’s easy to protect yourself even if something goes wrong.
1 Make your decision First find your product. If you’ve ever wanted an item you’ve seen a celebrity wearing, then www.like.com may help. This clever site can recognise what a celeb is toting by looking at a photograph. For instance, it will tell you that Brad Pitt was wearing a Casio Wave Ceptor watch at a recent launch party.
And should the watch prove too expensive, Like will suggest similar alternatives from other brands. At the moment this process works only with pictures of celebs on the site itself — it won’t scan random pictures you find on the web. However, the company claims this may be possible in the future.
If you’re shopping for computers or other tech kit, then head to www.dabs.com. The site allows you quickly to compare the specs of various models against each other. Even if you don’t buy the item there, seeing the items side by side makes the decision infinitely easier.
Should you need help making your mind up, then a peer review site such as www.reviewcentre.com — where visitors post their thoughts on items ranging from skateboards and toothbrushes to mobile phones — offers valuable real life experience. Be wary of sly companies bigging up their own products, however. Independent comparisons can be subscribed to at www.which.co.uk (formerly the Consumers’ Association).
2 How to make real savings Sites that scour the web for the best prices are a bargain-hunter’s chief ally. The newest is www.mysupermarket.co.uk, a fast-loading, well-illustrated site that simultaneously compares prices from Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Ocado. Simply shop on the site, and at the end you are presented with comparative bills from each store allowing you to opt for the cheapest.
Computers and software are often cheaper online and www.pricerunner.co.uk will tell you the cheapest place to find them. It will find deals on virtually any item you can think of, and is one of the few sites to compare both online and offline prices as well as scour internationally.
The web also excels at finding insurance deals and www.confused.com is one of the leading comparison tools.
For more complex products such as mortgages, however, it’s still best to talk to an adviser rather than rely on a website.
3 How to tell a trustworthy website At the very least, ensure the online retailer displays a phone number (not a mobile), a postal address (not a PO box number) and a secure way of paying. You can see whether a payment page is secure by checking that the “http” in the address of the site turns to “https”, and an unbroken padlock appears bottom right when you come to pay.
There are some good general tips at www.cardwatch.org.uk, such as the importance of printing out your order. If you’re buying from an individual on, say, an auction site, the government-backed www.getsafeonline.org suggests what to look for: is the product description clear? How promptly does the seller reply to questions? Legally, online shops must confirm your order by e-mail (this forms your contract) and don’t be impressed if they make a song and dance about letting you return items within seven days. This is the statutory minimum.
All sites should be upfront about returns, delivery charges, times and privacy. Data protection means they have to ask your permission to use your information for anything other than processing the order.
4 How to pay When buying online, it is safest to use a credit card. If something goes wrong (the company goes bust or the goods are faulty or misrepresented) the credit card company is liable along with the retailer. This applies to all products costing between £100 and £30,000 even if they were bought abroad.
Many people are worried about handing over card details online, but, claims Apacs, the UK payment association, it’s rare for people to hack into secure sites, meaning your details should be safe with reputable firms.
But if you want extra protection, a password (the equivalent of chip and pin) is offered to those who sign up at www.visaeurope.com/verified or www.mastercard.co.uk/securecode. This renders your details useless should the worst happen. By contrast only some debit cards offer protection to the user and even then it is unlikely to be as comprehensive.
5 When a shop won’t do Canny shoppers can use a barter system instead of traditional shopping on the web. At www.swopex.com you can swap your old CDs and DVDs for other CDs, DVDs, games or cash. The selection is immense and growing — from new film releases such as V for Vendetta to the latest album from punk-funk outfit the Rapture.
Simply post an item you wish to trade on the site, where it is valued in terms of credits. When it is bought, you receive credit, which you use to buy something, or “cash out” at a cost of 10% of the amount. “If you keep trading it never costs you anything,” says co-founder Martin Turner, “and we offer 100% refunds if something goes wrong.”
You could also scour online classified advertising at www.gumtree.com where you can find goods, from office equipment to musical instruments. Gumtree is a community website and feels more personal to use than eBay.
Auction sites are the other alternative, but do remember: if the item goes wrong — you buy an Alfa Romeo and the engine falls out, for instance — there is nothing you can do. Unlike an item from an online shop, it doesn’t have to be fit for purpose.
6 The last resort The foolproof way to prevent horrors is to buy from blue-chip companies such as Dixons or Marks & Spencer (although even this can go wrong, see below), but what you gain in safety you will inevitably lose in choice.
For added reassurance, look for the logos ISIS (internet shopping is safe) and IDIS (internet delivery is safe) on these sites. If there is a problem with goods from them, then the Interactive Media in Retail Group, www.imrg.org, the online retailers’ association, will arbitrate. The most common problems are to do with delivery, so ring the retailer and ask what the policy is.
If you have bought from a site you can’t contact, you should be able to find a name and address at www.whois.net, and your rights are clearly spelt out at www.tradingstandards.gov.uk.
If all else fails, Which? Legal Service has an offer of six months’ unlimited telephone legal advice for £12.75 a quarter (www.which.co.uk).
IN CYBERSPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU COMPLAIN
Nicholas Rufford
Internet shopping is fine, safe and convenient. At least it is until it all goes wrong.
Most people find that a few mouse clicks can save them from the high-street crush, and can save a few bob, but the savings amount to nothing when goods don’t turn up.
It’s hard to say how many dissatisfied customers there are, because nobody seems interested in recording that data. We approached Forrester Research and JupiterResearch, two of the most reputable research agencies in the field. They were happy to provide figures for how fast online shopping was growing and how profitable the sector had become, but had no data on complaints.
The Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) was similarly opaque on the matter. The group claims to represent more than 80% of online retailers in the UK, and is the place to go if you have a problem, but it had records of only 187 complaints this year. Could it be that’s because few have heard of it? A spokesman admitted the figure probably wasn’t a true reflection of the problem.
And what of Amazon, the world’s biggest online shop? Amazon didn’t respond to e-mails but anecdotal evidence suggests it keeps down the number of complaints by ignoring some of them. After frequent e-mailing to try to track down an item I ordered online in early October, I’m still waiting for a reply from Amazon and the supplier, AlphaCraze. The only response so far is a jaunty, automated e-mail inviting me to rate AlphaCraze’s performance “based on your completed transaction”. We e-mailed AlphaCraze and Amazon again, inviting them to comment for this article, but . . . no response. If you’ve shopped online and not received your goods, or you’ve had a similar experience to this one, please e-mail us at yourviews@sunday-times.co.uk.
