The good

Shopping online has many benefits, you have almost unlimited options available.

You can conveniently find specific products, or find the cheapest places to buy certain products; and everything is just one or two clicks away.

The bad

Every tree has its share of few bad apples, net is no different and thats why some extra wariness is in order.

Below are couple basic common sense tips that will make your online shopping experience more rewarding.

Address, phone number, physical location

Its usually safer to buy from a company that exist also outside the web.

Check out if the site has an address and phone number listed on their web site, and that they are a real company that exist outside the web, if not you might want to think twice before doing business with them.

Tips: Whois source shows the registration information for websites.

Alexa.com has surfer posted reviews of popular sites.

Bogus Claims, over the top hype

Does the site use clear bogus claims or over the top hype, if it does, you might want to think twice before doing business with them.

Little hype is ok, but truly over the top claims should raise a red flag, if something feels too good to be true, it probably is just that.

Tip: You can do some googling, using keywords like scam company xyz, - My personal favourite phrase is forum product/company xyz.

Paying safely

Using credit card is probably the best way to pay online as you can often dispute the charges if something is wrong.

Make sure the transactions form is safe and that the site uses generally accepted encryption/safety measures to secure the transaction process.

Tip: One "good" indicator for secure order form/page, is that the address starts with https:// instead of http://

That just about wraps it, safe shopping