In my cluster I am known for my thrifty online shopping… As evidenced by this poster that one of my lovely friends made and hung up in the cluster bathroom.
I love finding good deals online so that I can get new things without breaking the very limited college student’s bank. It’s kind of exciting to me. These are the places I find great deals!
Before I start, one of my favorite secrets is to sign up for online coupon codes. Most large websites have a little box somewhere that you can type in your email address for them to send you information about online specials and sales, along with coupon codes for free shipping or discounts! Free shipping is your friend! I get emails from Forever 21, J. Crew Factory (J. Crew’s cheaper, but just as wonderful, sister store), and Glik’s, just to name a few. You do have to be careful with this though, because it can get overwhelming, and a lot of times the deals aren’t as great as they seem. I try to only take advantage of these if I’ve had my eye on something to order for a while anyway, so it really is a good deal since I was probably going to spend the money anyway. I also have a separate email account that I use for all these stores, just so it doesn’t overload my school email or anything like that.
I mainly buy jewelry from Groopdealz, but a lot of times they have cute clothes and housewares too! Everything is extremely reasonably priced and I’ve never had a problem with the quality. Shipping is free sometimes (it depends on the seller) so that’s something you have to check before you order, but even if you do have to pay for it, most of the time it’s just a few dollars. They add new products every day and usually only sell things for a few days at a time, so there’s always something new to see!
Everyone knows about Amazon, but it’s not always the first place we think of when we want to buy clothes or jewelry. I have learned, interestingly enough, to look for shoes on Amazon. I recently found a pair of awesome Steve Madden boots (last year’s model) for $35 on Amazon. That’s over 50% off the original price. I was pretty excited about them. Amazon sometimes doesn’t have things marked down at all, so you really have to look. Again, this is usually something I check if I know I’m going to buy something anyway and I want to look around for the best price. I knew I wanted to get the boots so I searched them on Amazon and they had by far the best deal!
Again, we all know about eBay, but I don’t think we all realize how great the things on it can be. I got a pair of awesome, super soft and warm, brand new fleece lined leggings on there for $6 with free shipping. I also got a keyboard cover for my laptop for under $3. Sometimes you can also find awesome new brand name clothing on eBay for huge discounts, but there is fake stuff on there so you have to be careful about it. If you’re not afraid of used things, you can often find stuff for almost nothing. I’m a huge eBay fan.
SIGN UP FOR GLIK’S EMAILS. Seriously. Do it. All the clothes are super cool and relatively inexpensive. They carry guys stuff too! When you sign up for their emails they’ll send you a coupon that you can use online or in-store. I bought something online and then they sent me another even better coupon for next time I wanted to buy something online. If you have your products shipped to a store (there just so happens to be one a couple blocks away in downtown Holland), shipping is free!
What are your favorite online stores? Leave me a comment, send me an email at kathryn.krieger@hope.edu, or follow @hopekathryn17 on Twitter and send me a tweet! Thanks for reading! Happy Monday!