Sizing up a store you have never used
Check a few concrete things before you buy from an unfamiliar store.
The question is not whether the store looks nice. Anybody can buy a nice looking store page for very little money.
The useful question is whether the store has anything that would be expensive to fake. A working phone number. A street address you can find on a map. A return policy written in plain sentences with actual deadlines in it.
The three things worth finding, in order: how you contact a human, what happens if you send the item back, and how long the store has been around. All three are usually reachable from links at the very bottom of the page.
One more mechanism worth knowing. Paying by credit card gives you a dispute process with your card company. That process exists no matter what the store promises on its own page.
Key points
- A nice looking page is cheap to make and proves nothing.
- Look for contact details, a return policy, and some history.
- The bottom of the page holds most of that.
- A credit card gives you a dispute process later.
- No phone number and no address is a real answer, not a missing one.
What to remember
- The bottom of a store page is where the real information hides.
- Before you buy, know how you would reach a person afterward.
- For a store you are unsure about, use the payment method with a dispute process.
Try this
Pick any store you have bought from before, scroll to the very bottom, and find its phone number and return deadline. Now you know what a good one looks like.
Practice: Sizing up a store you have never used. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.