Are You Shopping Globally Yet?
More and more of us are looking to the internet to provide us with what we want to buy. And there are plenty of benefits to doing so.
For example, some businesses are purely based online which means lower overheads and the chance to offer people lower prices. And you will always find that one unusual gift online that you can never seem to find anywhere else.
What’s more, the idea of going shopping - especially during the pre-Christmas rush - can often be too much to bear. Why jostle with everyone else at the mall when you can simply sit down at your computer, browse around for what you want and then place your order without having to worry about queuing?
And after all that, you’ll get your order nice and easy a few days later, delivered direct to your door. What could be better?
It’s no wonder more people are doing it. But what do you do when you go online and search for something specific using the search engines? My guess is you ask the results to be filtered so that you only find websites that are based in your own country. This is how a lot of people work.
But have you considered looking further afield?
Just think about it - you’ve got a great choice of gifts and items online to buy in your own country. But each country has its own quirks and if you search for stuff that is available elsewhere, you can often buy gifts for other people (and of course for yourself) that are even better.
It pays to be wise before you buy though. Every country will have its own set of specific rules regarding what you can and cannot import. For example, the This is Money website in the UK gives advice for that particular country at http://www.thisismoney.co.uk. If you want to find out how you stand in your own country, simply type something like ‘foreign shopping online’ into the search engine of your choice and look for the information you need.
If you are armed with the right information you can buy some great items from abroad though. It pays to keep an eye on the exchange rates with developed countries because you can snag a real bargain if the rate goes in your favor. This is true even if you bear in mind the fact that the shipping charges are likely to be higher.
The trick is to have a currency converter close at hand and to be sure exactly what you will pay before you buy. Whenever you find anything you like the look of, make sure you search for it in your own country before you actually buy it. Quite often you will stumble over something abroad and then discover you can buy it in your own country after all!
There are certainly benefits to shopping abroad, but there is no doubt that some websites are easier to access for this purpose than others. For example, eBay is probably one of the better sites when it comes to opening up the world to anyone and everyone. As well as having countless different websites for different countries, you can view items from other places on your own country’s site as well.
Of course the question of your own country’s exchange rate with the country you want to buy from is a big factor in whether it is worth buying elsewhere or not. I recently found a product in another country that I tried to buy, but for some reason the global checkout wouldn’t work properly. When I came back the next day to try again, the exchange rate had changed sufficiently to make the purchase slightly more expensive! Such are the perils of buying abroad.
There is no doubt that the internet has made us all closer together. But it has also made us more aware of the role that different currencies have in the world. Whereas before many of us wouldn’t really have thought about other currencies unless we needed them for a vacation abroad, now we are finding we need to take more interest in them for various reasons.
So the next time you are thinking about buying something from a website, have a think about which websites are worth looking at - and which countries they are in.
