Online Shopping: 10 Tips For Safe Online Shopping

Have you ever bought a product or service from the internet? Me too. Some of the reasons why most people are shopping online are: they can buy anything at anytime because Internet shopping is available 24 hours, all the time. You can shop from the convenience of your home. You can avoid traffic and crowding at the malls. Online shopping is one of the best ways to locate hard-to-find items not available in your local stores. Whatever you buy can be delivered by mail to your house. Most online stores and companies provide excellent values and discount prices because they do not have to pay the overhead of owning a physical business that will cost them insurance, employee pay, taxes and more. VeriSign, Inc. says that online sales recorded during the prime holidays shopping season was about $2.2 billion dollars. According to a study by Forrester Research Company, by 2010, online sales will reach $331 billion dollars. More consumers are shopping online today than a year ago. The range of products they buy are many: software, hardware, electronics, digital products, music, toys, e-books, books, programs, DVD, flowers, pets, jewelry, clothes, air tickets, insurance, cars, prescription drugs, comic books, games, gifts and more. They are flocking to buy from online bookstores, software stores, online computer stores, target stores, pet stores, liquor stores, drug stores, music stores, furniture stores, fabric stores, the Disney store, outlet stores, surplus stores, discount stores, thrift stores, gift stores, candy stores, lingerie stores, sports stores, video stores, sex stores, department stores, game stores, clothing stores and others. Be a smart and savvy online shopper. Shop wisely and safely. Here are a few tips to help you do your online shopping safely. (1) Shop at the websites of companies that you know and are popular offline. If you