My Shopping Online Blog
The aim of this web site blog is to make your Internet shopping experience a more enjoyable experience.
The Internet is evolving as we speak, with it, the so called www revolution. The latter is the brainchild of Sir Tim Berners Lee. For some, there is the joy of the traditional shopping experience, while for the rest, we want to be able to spend the least time shopping. For us then, the Internet is ideal since we only need to go online in the comfort of our own homes. There is still bargain hunting to be done and searching for the best deals though.
Shopping online if you listen to the hype on the media is a dangerous game. Well is it? Ask around amongst family, friends and colleagues and see how many have fallen victim to online credit card scams etc. If you have found a victim, delve deeper into the actual circumstances surrounding the case. I am not going to dispute any cases since it is a sad fact of life that there are in this world people of all nationalities willing to exploit others legally or illegally. In lots of the cases highlighted in the media however, it would appear that some basic cautionary steps would have averted the deceit.
On both of the major Internet browsers is an icon of a lock, look for it now and you will see that it is shown open on my web site. This is telling you that you are not on a secure web site. Never enter sensitive information like your credit card details on a web site that does not have the lock shut.
There are some well known stores that have an Internet presents but do make sure that you verify that you are actually on their web site and not an imposter web site. With the majors, the name in the address bar will in most cases be the name of the company. www.microsoft.com for example will be the Microsoft web site, equally www.microsoft.co.uk takes you to Microsoft. The suffix of .com and .co.uk in this case belong to the same company, but this may not be always the case. Tucows offers a domain lookup service that will allow you to check the owner of a domain name, so if in doubt about the validity of a web site use the Tucows or similar domain lookup service, they are free.
You will notice that as your mouse hovers over hyperlink (the underlined text) you will get an address showing up at the bottom of your browser. Often you will find that this bears no resemblance to the intended web site, do not be alarmed. Many web site owners, myself included, use affiliate networks in which to generate revenue and the address or URL at the bottom of the browser is used to log that your visit to the intended site came from say mine. Currys is a UK high street electrical supplier, if you hover over the link you will not see Currys name anywhere. What happens when you click the link however is that after a short pause you are taken to the Currys web site with the suffix .co.uk.
Some online stores you might never had heard of. In this case look at the quality of the web site and let that be your guide as to the authenticity. Googling the trading name can also help you decide if the web site is genuine. (Googling is a term used to describe entering a name into the Google search engine to see what web sites come up).