Wednesday Review - Shopping on Amazon

Today we are introducing what we hope to be a weekly thing, called "Wednesday Review". We are going to start reviewing items (mostly arts and craft related) and give you an idea on what the pros and cons of certain items are. Please note these are our personal opinions based on our experiences. Also at the end of every month we will be doing a book review!

For this first post we are going to talk about Amazon and shopping on it. Amazon is a great site and very easy to get addicted to. The keys to Amazon though are shopping smart. How do you shop smart online let alone on Amazon? It all depends on how comfortable you are with certain websites.

Our first piece of advice when buying online is only buy from sites you feel comfortable with. These sites should be well known sites, a good example is Amazon. They are a well known company and they make it their mission to keep their customers satisfied.

Second piece of advice is, don't give out your personal credit card information if you feel uneasy about it. It is very easy to get pre-paid credit cards now and they are a great alternative if you feel uncomfortable giving your information out online.

Now for advice specifically for Amazon. Amazon has sites all over the world so no matter where you are you should be able to find an Amazon website for your country. Please remember that you can not order off Amazons from other countries and expect them to ship to your country. (Example if you are in Canada, you should shop at Amazon.ca because if you are shopping at Amazon.com you'll need to have an address in the U.S.A to ship your items to.)

When you buy on Amazon you need to pay attention to who is selling the item and who is fulfilling the shipping. Anyone can sell on Amazon so this means some items are not coming directly from them. This also means that who ever you are buying items from could be from anywhere in the world. This also means that shipping could take up to a month.

Now for the pros of Amazon. A wonderful option on Amazon is the Wish List. We encourage everyone to make a Wish List and visit it on a somewhat regular bases. For one thing, the Wish List keeps everything organized for you. You don't have to worry about saving the link to an item you want and you don't have to worry about losing it or forgetting about it. You can also share your Wish List with people and that can make things easier when it comes to the holidays, to a wedding registry or a baby registry.

Another great thing about the Wish List is it tracks the price changes for you. This is one of the reason you may want to check back frequently. There is also an option in your List that will show you the items that have had a price change and by how much. This is a great way to save money.