Are you living abroad and feeling a little homesick, so you’ve looked at various online stores to see if this might help? Are you nervous to shop online while living abroad because you don’t want to make any mistakes or spend more money than you have?
Being abroad changes how you shop online quite significantly. While the concept and idea are still very much the same, there are a few other things that you need to take into consideration to ensure that you are making the best choices and doing everything right.
The internet is full of hackers and scammers, and you need to make sure that you are doing what’s best to protect yourself from all of this. There are adjustments that you can make from anywhere in the world to shop safely online. Here are mistakes to avoid when shopping online abroad.
Not Using a Shipping Service
Shopping online is a great way for people living abroad to have a little piece of home without actually having to go back home. However, it can get a bit pricey, especially when it comes to delivering to a whole other country.
International shipping can be very expensive and if you don’t want to have to pay so much, you should consider using a shipping service like MyUS. If, for example, you’re living in the UK, you can shop from your favorite US stores, order your favorite items by using a MyUS address and have them sent to you in no time anywhere in the UK. You can check shipping rates to the UK at https://www.myus.com/where-we-ship/united-kingdom/. This dedicated shipping service provides shipping to more than 220 countries and territories around the world, so it can be incredibly helpful when it comes to shipping to your host country without breaking the back.
Not Using a VPN
Next up on our list of mistakes to avoid is not using a VPN. When you are abroad you will most likely be using public Wi-Fi a lot of the time, especially before you get settled down in your own home. However, this comes with its own set of dangers and makes it easy to be hacked.
If you ever find yourself using this public Wi-Fi, a great way to protect yourself is by making use of a VPN or a Virtual Private Network. Essentially what this does is give you an encrypted tunnel between you and the server. This means people nearby won’t be able to see your online activity or be able to hack your personal information through public Wi-Fi.
Not Looking for Deals
There are so many online stores these days. While some of them are smaller local stores that make all hand-crafted things that you wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else, for the most part, you can almost always find a better deal.
This is especially true if you are buying from big online retailers such as amazon. Online stores are always offering deals, promotions, and discounts and you should be keeping an eye out for them whenever you are shopping online.
These days there are even apps that will help you find discount codes for various online stores.
Not Shopping Safely
When shopping online, you want to make sure that you are buying from a secure online site. You may think this is a tricky thing to do, but it is as simple as looking at the URL and seeing if it starts with HTTP or is HTTPS. If it has an s on the end, it means that it is secured with SSL encryption.
This means that your information will not be able to be seen by anyone besides you and the retailer and no one will be able to hack it.
Not Having a Budget
Last but not least, we have the budget. It is very easy to get carried away when shopping online which means having a budget is crucial, especially if you don’t have much money to waste.
If you are shopping online for essentials, make sure that you budget enough for these. However, if you are just shopping for things you want, you should be sure to set a budget that is reasonable and will leave you with enough disposable income at the end of the day.