Shopping has completely changed in the last few years, especially after e-commerce platforms like Alibaba, Amazon, and Flipkart were made open to the world. The days of roaming in a shopping mall for hours or switching between different shops in the market are long gone. Price Comparison Website also lets you choose and buy goods at even more cheap prices.

Even though online shopping has become quite popular, there are mistakes a user generally does while shopping which costs them their time or money or both. Read furthermore to know about DO and DON'Ts of online shopping.

DO's

• While making a payment online, make sure you are using home wifi and not public wifi like hotel, and airport, because hackers may easily hack public wifi to get into your account.
• Download an anti-phishing tool so you can track fake web page and land on original one. For the uninitiated, Phishing is creating a webpage layout similar to the original one, when you enter your details, it is sent to their server instead of the original website.
• A lot of people search on a search engine for a specific item to buy and end up on fake websites. Make sure that you buy from only trusted sellers like Amazon.
• While making a payment online, make sure that the payment page URL has 'https://". It ensures that your data is private.
• Shop using a smartphone or a tablet. While downloading an app, check what permission it asks for and give only minimum permissions.
• When an app asks for if you want to save your password while logging in, deny it. If your phone gets lost and you have saved your password, anyone can access your account.

Here are some DON'Ts of online shopping.

DON'Ts

• Don't trust social media deals on any product or service as most URLs are shortened there so you can't determine if you are entering your data on a legit website or fraud website.
• Don't use your business or personal e-mail address to shop. Create a separate e-mail for retail where you can receive all promotions and deals but if it gets hacked, it does not create a problem for you.
• Don't fall for deals that are too good true be true. Most of them are fraud and ask you to enter your credit card details or direct payment. Even if the email seems proper, don't trust it and purchase from a proper retailer's shop instead.
• Don't provide access information. Generally, sellers ask for name, email, credit card number and address. If they ask for social security number, a driver's license number, etc. they are likely a fraud seller.
• Don't fall for schemes which claim you have won something for free. If you receive an e-mail or a text asking you to enter email, mobile number or credit card number then immediately delete it as they are most likely a fraud trying to steal your data.