Shopping Online - what are your experiences?

P

Pearl

New Member
Location
UK
A few years ago I opened an on-line Tesco account for my mum. She had become housebound after a fall - and I didn't live close enough to shop for her on a regualr basis.

Unfortunately, mum is no longer with us - but so good was her experience, that this winter, and because of the awful weather, I have used Tesco online myself. I love it ! I imagine I shall use it more and more - no more queing at the tills. I will get much more enjoyment out of wandering the market for my fresh fruit and vegs if I know I don't have to do a supermarket shop afterwards. the delivery men are always courteous and efficient and I still get my loyalty points.

I also regularly use Amazon and Ebay, have used Groupon (twice), plus a few other online stores on an ad hoc basis.

Last month I had some skin lesions removed. They were caused by sun damage from over 35 years ago when I never bothered about SPF's and UV rays . . . the dermatologist prescribed some cream to prevent scarring which I had to use for 10 days. She also recommended that I use an SPF 50 year round and another cream for the current condition of my skin. This latter costs £35 per VERY SMALL bottle in the chemists - I found it for £12 per bottle on Ebay.
 

I really like the convenience of shopping online, especially as I live in an area of town that doesn't really have any stores, I don't drive and it would take half the day traveling on buses to get anywhere. It's good that I don't have to put up with people pushing and shoving, it's good that I can compare prices so easily and most of the time I can arrange free shipping.

The downsides are that on places like eBay it's "buyer beware" (nothing new with that) and that you can't really get a sense of the quality of an item just through a photo and description. As a result I've purchased some turkeys (not literally) but I suppose it's part of the learning curve.
 
I've had mostly good experiences shopping online. You do have to be careful of high shipping charges. Buying from Amazon the shipping is often free. I've bought from ebay and many different stores online with good results.

I will not use debit cards or anything with my bank account info online. I have one credit cart by my computer that I use only for online purchases.
 

I buy a lot of stuff on-line but 95% of the time, I call the company and give them my card number over the phone. 99% of what I buy is horse-related because I either can't find the item locally, or it's ten times cheaper out of a catalogue.

I have bought from Amazon and been happy with my purchase. That being said, a person has to do their homework BEFORE they buy something on-line; meaning look for reviews on the product and the company selling the product. Then call the company -- that's what those toll-free 800#'s are for:)

Mr. TWHRider is a big Ebay user. He buys/sells old Ford parts and race parts all the time. The few times I have bought on Ebay, I use his PayPal account.

I love PayPal - it's the safest way to spend or receive money on-line.

I remember SifuPhil once commenting there was a transfer limit from PayPal to the bank account but we have never encountered that. I sold a saddle last month for quite a bit of money and didn't have a bit of problem transferring the entire amount into the checking account we have set up as "Ebay only" <---no it is not the regular account; even though I am fairly comfortable doing business on-line, there is still a certain amount of reserved paranoia in my brain - lol lol lol
 
Yeah, about that limit - they doubled it for me, after I finally "verified" my identity.

... I sent them my poster from the Post Office.
Devil.gif


You have to watch out for PayPal, though ... there are tons of horror stories associated with them, and they're infamous for not giving a tinker's damn. I believe there were quite a lot of PayPal/eBay stories also, but as I don't use eBay much anymore I can't vouch for them.

My opinion is that anyone or anything that controls my money is not to be trusted.
 
I do shop (and sell) online and have been for over a decade. I think part of an individual's comfort with online shopping is the overall knowledge level they have about computers and the Net. I meet and help people every day who are just operating an appliance rather tan understanding their computer. If they see one little thing that is different on their screen they just "lock up" and cannot figure out what to do.

I try my best to get them thinking in terms of understanding the coputer environment rather than a series of steps but most just do not get it.
 
I have shopped and do all my banking, bill paying on line for about 10 years. I've only had one problem and the credit card company called me immediately to verify if it was my charge. $700 at an online music store. That's the only problem, financially that I've had.

Living as rural as we do now, shopping online is not a choice now, it's pretty much a necessity in a lot of instances. i do a lot of Amazon, and find if I have a problem they are very helpful.

I buy my dog food on line as the Gangstas get only the best and they don't carry the premium brands in the podunk towns around here. It's nice because they deliver it to my door and I don't have to struggle getting 35# bags in carts, then in the truck, then to the house, and it's automatically shipped every month.

I used to buy quite a bit of collector items on Ebay, but I had more less than satisfactory transactions than not, so I quit. I don't much like the bidding format, either and the "buy now" options are usually overpriced.

Having said that I have a lot of items that I would like to try to sell on Ebay or some other site, but have to get motivated to learn how.
 
Never shopped on ebay or had a paypal account. I have bought things at Amazon over the years, and have been very satisfied with the service there. I sometimes buy other things, like dog/cat supplies, vitamins, and clothing or bedding now and then from stores like Cabelas, PetEdge or Swanson Vitamins. I do a lot of my shopping in brick and mortar stores, but have had good experiences so far when shopping online.

So far I haven't set up any bill paying online, if we go away for awhile on vacation, I just pre-pay for that time, by sending a bigger payment in the regular mail. That's worked fine for now. I never had a debit card, but if I ever decide to pay my bills online, I think I'll set it up to come out of one of my credit cards instead. :saturn:
 
I haven't been to an actual bank in ages. I get paid by direct deposit and do all of my banking and pay bills on line. If I need cash, I go to the ATM. Its all done through the bank web site. I have never bought anything on line, just not sure if I want my credit card info out there in cyberland. I have bought plane tickets on line though. Ebay etc., have never used them. I'm close enough to the city that its not a big deal to go there.
 
I've had good and bad experiences over the years. Mostly good, though. Been ripped off a couple of times and gone through customer service hell but mostly find shopping online a great way to go.
 
I just rejoined eBay.

I was a member many years ago when I still had my schools and used to spend quite a lot of money on there. That of course was back when I HAD money to spend. :rolleyes:

Years passed, got divorced, closed the schools, stopped buying crap ...

I went to log-on the other day to look for something for my roomie and discovered that I couldn't recall my password. Hit the button for them to send me my password and never got the email. Tried 3 more times. Nada.

Created a new account. They took it. Linked up my Paypal account. No problem. Things were going FAR too smoothly.

After purchasing my roomie's item I looked around and an information product caught my eye. It was an instant download, very big - 3GB or so. Purchased it.

Got the verification emails from eBay. The seller contacted me and gave me the link for the download. That's when the fun started ...

Every file was either non-existent, corrupt or incomplete. One time it refused to recognize the downloaded files; another time it demanded a password which neither I nor the seller could determine. I was sent to site after site as he tried various uploading and compression techniques. I felt like I was snipe hunting.

After 17 emails from me and 16 from the seller I was finally able to both download and extract the files. The thing is, I was a "brand new" eBayer and he only had 22 sales; he seemed to be honest enough, just inept.

So I tried my best to advise the seller how to sell something to me, and after several hours it finally paid off. I look at it as my contribution to SCORE. ;)
 

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