Thursday, November 17, 2011

Buy first, look last.

Of course you're supposed to first look at the price, and then buy (or don't, if you choose not to). But sometimes, the opposite order works to your advantage. When?

Lots of sites these days have a "lightning deal" feature (I borrowed the term from Amazon). These are deals that are available for a very short time only, but at a pretty good discount. Sometimes an amazing discount. Obviously, everyone rushes to buy them so by the time you've finished deliberating whether you want it or not, it's gone. And that shouldn't be happening to you.

What I suggest is this: Once you find out a deal is in the horizon, keep the page on which the deal will be displayed open in your browser, before the deal is available for purchase. If you know when the deal will occur, excellent. If not, refresh periodically. Amazon, for one, shows a countdown timer near the mystery item so you know when to be prepared. Then, as soon as the deal is announced, CLICK THE BUY BUTTON! Don't worry, you will still get to review your payments and stuff later. If you don't click Buy, the item will not be in your cart.

Once it's in your cart, most sites will not pull it out again, but just in case, hurry through the sign-in and checkout process. There will always be a page for you to review your order and hit "submit". Now is when you can think! Think if you want the item, if it's valuable to you, and if the sale price is worth it. Sometimes, the deal may appear awesome, but it isn't really. So double-check.

Once completed, there's just one more thing you ought to do: gloat.

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