Money Saving Tip

With Black Friday backing up to Thursday for some businesses and Christmas now getting close, a lot of people are buying things online. Here is something a bit disturbing and some suggestions to work around it.

Yes Virginia, it is true, many online stores are charging different amounts for the same merchandise. It can depend on your location (reported by your internet provider) or whether you use a mobile or desktop device. It can even depend on your cookies.

It turns out that Victoria's Secret was she had different prices for people depending on their location and other factors. Once that secret was out, it wasn't long until we found out that many other companies do the same.

How do you get the lower price and maybe even treated a bit more fairly?

Here are some tips:

1. Try pricing the same thing from the same business online with both a desktop and a mobile device. You may see a real difference in price.

2. Keep your browser open to the page with your item and price, so if you do this you won't lose that price if it is lower and then clear your cookies and open another browser tab and check again. You might see a higher price, but you could see a lower price.

3. If you have a VPN, a virtual private network, then try going to the online store through that. It frustrates the location pricing strategy for the company. 

4. Check with a friend's computer or mobile device or even have a friend or relative living in another state check the price.

5. Clear your cookies and try at a different time of day. Yes, some stores have different prices for different days and different times of the day.

6. Before you buy, google promo codes and see if you can find a promo code to lower your price or get free shipping that you can use when you check out. There are many promo code sites on the web now. Some good, some not so good. I don't like giving them information to get the codes, but you might consider using a throw away email address if you see something you want on one of the websites that require you to sign up.

Happy Shopping,
Scott Hogue CChH
​