A battle for top spot with e-commerce giants-ebay and Amazon? Though an unimaginable thing for millions, the Chinese know the answer. They are all set to cut down the hits in the ebay China website. Taobao is more than what you call popular here. It has been the hardships for long years that have bared fruit this season.

The Chinese counterpart has been on the sprint with offers, free shipping, timely deals and bargains and grand coupons. This has surely grabbed some of the faithful from the Western e-commerce sites to the country’s own ones. The advertisement spending is at an all time high (With Olympics and Motor races as premium ones) and this has led the citizens understand the facts.

Taobao is on the way to diversify its projects and get to catch the late birds in e-shopping and early birds in other fields from among the fastest growing internet population in the world. The English site Alibaba has already caught the eyes of Asia and offers free samples for a vast majority of products. Expect for the unexpected.

It was a not much noticed day promoted by the hungry online trading giants. But as of 2008, cyber Monday became the single day where more people throng to online e-commerce sites in a calendar year. The concept itself was a grand success in all sense.

Nevertheless it has brought much advantage to the consumer side too. This is a day when you can get the best of the deals and bargains that you have ever imagined. Moreover free shipping and valuable gifts are all waiting for you in the online sales. This is especially true of the electronic gadgets.

To get the most out of this cyber Monday

1. Sign in for newsletters of your favorite online shop and you would get the best of best.
2. Get on to sites like cybermonday.com and similar deal site to grab the opportunity at the earliest.
3. Seek out coupon codes, either online or offline. Make a note of retailmenot.com
4. Order through a reward site. You could get more offers than when you directly buy from an e-commerce website. Just check out upormise.com, fatwallet.com, mypoints.com
5. Always compare prices before you shop.

And for your safety check out the previous articles on eshopster.

Safe shopping tips

Online shopping is on the rise in India with Delhi, Mumbai on the forefront. But the IT capital Bangalore has shown a meagre rise of 6% in online shopping. But a new venture on show from Bangalore is Storrz.

Storrz is a new online shop in India offering everything from groceries to electronics. One may wonder how an Indian can buy perishables like vegetables and fruits online without confirming the quality. Storrz offers products from a wide variety of stores most of which have retail offline outlets too. The site also features a wishlist and online community for discussing and exhibiting your needs and ideas.

Groceries are only delivered to the Bangalore area. And if these items are not good while you recieve your order, you can have your items replaced. There is no instant delivery facility, but they will despatch your items on the next working day. Moreover there is a minimum checkout limit for your delivery to take place. You will get credits for shopping which are equivalent to the money in rupee for which you can have further shopping.

Just 26% of products in the online sales list are available for open customer reviewing. But the fact is that the major portion of sales is from this category. Many including myself have either fell in for false positive reviews and at times discarded a product reading the warnings and negative reviews of some disgruntled people. I have found a few ways to overcome this mistake. Perhaps you could add more to this list.

1. Check for mixed reviews: Check whether your online shops have all mixed reviews, including both 5-star and 1-star ratings. But most of the forums get polarised and there would be only reviews standing at the two extremes which are better considered wrong.
2. Read the review: (I wont say carefully) but the grammar and spelling mistakes as well as local slangs may give you a clue of whether its a real person who had been over it. But, the marketeers can be too clever and easily mimic such a review.
3. Never trust a 5-star (also a 1-star): It may be the manufacturers and marketeers of the business who may be behind the hi5 ratings. On the other hand disgruntled employees and competitors may be the miserly ones. But its generally found that people go in for 4-star ratings than a perfect 5 (another market trick, beware!)
4. Negative reviews: They are not the ones which make you turn away from your products. They should be take as the precautions you should take when you buy the thing. Though negative reviews help assess the product better, always take time to read the positive ones too.
5. Average ratings: If the ratings stand in the middle chunk, make sure that its not the result of a large number of reviews. As the number of reviews increase the ratings usually tend to the medial line.

And always keep in mind that those marketing executives know all these beforehand. You may be forced to believe them or over the other way. So keep adding your suggestions.

1. Run virus & spyware scans: Always perform routine virus and spyware checks as these bugs may copy your credit card numbers. They make your computers prone all sorts of online frauds. Do not install any spyware scanners that automatically appear while browsing; telling your PC is fully infested. Anti root-kit protection also allows your password protection. There are some online virus scanners.Virustotal can scan with 35 antivirus scanners once you upload a file. Also check your outdated programs which make your computer prone for infections, Secunia may be useful software.
2. Shop on affiliated sites: Always perform online shopping on those sites accredited to standard and security agencies like BBB (Better Business Bureau), Buysafe, Verisign etc. Adding to this the logos should be clickable. If not confirm it’s not a trusted source.
3. Review return and exchange policy: Before buying an object, review the return and exchange policy. Some sites like apple do not offer any returns.
4. Avoid debit cards: Your account may be overdrawn even before you may get time to cancel.
5. Use credit cards instead: These are the most security risk free way of online shopping. You are entirely protected from any frauds or account overdraws. American Express, Visa and Mastercard have a zero liability policy. You do not have to pay anything for unauthorized transactions if you notify the financial institutions promptly. It’s better to signup for their password challenge programs wherein you are asked a password for each online transaction you are coming across. For more information check their websites Mastercard, Visa.
6. Paypal is even better: With paypal, you do not have to enter your credit card number anywhere and you will be freed from typing your details each time. It also offers a wide range of deals. Here is the list of shops enrolled with paypal.
7. Do not open promo emails: Most of those emails which get into your spam folder or even in the inbox which offers you unbelievable offers are better deleted. Also promos of any shopping stuff for which you have not registered should also be taken with precaution. These may open your sites for virus and spywares. Do not download any softwares that come along through an email.
8. Do not type in PINs: Do not type in your credit/debit card PINs anywhere. Also do not type in your addresses in unauthorized sites. Do not follow any links to shopping that appears as pop up windows while browsing.

Hope this would be enough for now. But this has to be constantly updated with spammers and hackers finding new and better ways to hack your accounts. Please send in your comments too. If you liked this blogpost please do click any of the icons below.

For those of you who eagerly wait for their ordered products day-night, a great option offered by Amazon is on your way. Selected cities would enjoy delivery of the products on the same day itself.
“Amazon customers placing deliveries within the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, Baltimore, Las Vegas, and Seattle, as well as "some surrounding areas," will now be able to receive shipments on the same day they place an order. The service will be coming to Chicago, Indianapolis, and Phoenix "in the coming months."

This local express delivery system is offered for some limited products (but a huge number) and comes with varied pricing. Those of you, who already pay $79 for the two-day delivery system, now just have to pay $6 for this special offer per item. For others it would be less economical with the pricing ranging through $15/product.

The customers would have to order the product within the cut-off time prescribed for the city which could be 10AM in New York whilst is 1PM in Seattle.

Online shopping may be the thing of the future. It may harbor much more articles than in the largest shopping mall in the world. But as far as I have learned there are a few items which are better bought offline if you do not want to get cheated.

1. Luxury goods: The first thing to notice is that most of these branded items are not offered online and therefore do not let that pranksters cheat you over them. Adding to that, these $5000 stuffs can never be offered for $500 or $50. And if you are offered one, it could be a counterfeit stuff whose halflife would be a few days to weeks without any warranties or guarantees. You can very well see that the price range for those ipods donot have a wide variation.
2. Prescribed medicines: Do not let those online medicine businessmen cheat you. Many of these products are fake or outdated with wrong contents which could do all harm to your body. Especially be aware of those spamming medical advertisers. But you can very well buy reliable ones from qualified online shops like drugstore.
3. Fragile electronics: There could be no guarantee that you would get these products in a single piece. Before letting yourselves pay online for these stuffs make sure the company would buy back those shattered products and pay back. If at all they pay back there would be a 10-20% fine or shipping fee trap behind. And if you notice many like Apple donot appreciate returns.
4. Groceries: A controversial topic, but if you like to have the tastiest and fresh apples or tomatoes it would be better if you walk through the markets and personally touch and feel them. I would prefer online purchase of groceries only if they offer free delivery.
5. Intimate wears: No one expects you sending back the briefs or bras you bought online and tried and almost no one accepts too. There would be a slight variation of these products between manufacturers. So buy them only if you are sure with the sizes and get lucrative offers online.

There may be a bit more you could add up to this list and it would be helpful if you did so.

Its a Barack Obama week for almost all shopping sites. Shopping spree is to get this brand on anything and everything from food plates to t-shirts. Some of the best sellers also include the onetime best seller book of Obama- Audacity of Hope. Here are the best buys I have found over net on Brand Obama.

 Paperback: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Author: Obama, Barack

You get it at $4.00

List Price: $7.99

You Save: $3.99 (50%)
Link to Walmart


Buy.com offers the Barack Obama Historic Victory Collectible Plate for $9.99 with free shipping, it's the lowest total price we could find by $16. It includes a stand and a certificate of authenticity.

Barack Obama For President T-Shirt (Metallic Gold, Silver Foil or Contrast Blue)

Price:	$24.00 - $31.00
Sale:	$19.99 - $26.99
You Save:	$11.01 (35%)

Check out at Amazon shopping

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

By Obama Barack

List price:	$14.95
You save:	$5.08 plus $5.00* add'l savings
Shipping:	FREE

Your price:

$4.87 (67% off)

Link to Hotbooksale shopping