WHY HAVE I ALWAYS BOUGHT WRONG PRODUCTS ONLINE?

Technology has come to ease our lives but many people have failed to harness its benefits all for their ignorance.

Oh Yes! Ignorance! 

A large number of People log on to sites like Jumia, konga, Alibaba, Amazon etc but end up buying products that are not worth the money they are spending for such products or end up having it delivered late.

I once chatted a person who was the best man at his friend's wedding. He told me that he had no proper shoe befitting the occasion so he placed an order online but unfortunately, the shoe came in one week after the set delivery date which was just a day before the wedding.

OMG!😳

For him, the painful part of it was that the shoe wasn't exactly what he ordered. The Item was of a lower-quality and of a different design.

Well he had no option than to use a shoe like that for the occasion since he had no much time to return it and order for another one.

He complained bitterly and I asked him some questions which he could not answer. He would have gotten exactly what he wanted if he had checked all his boxes. Now, lets see the questions I asked him below.

Question 1

Do you check the product rating of whatever item you buy online?

This is a significant factor many people overlook when purchasing products online. 

They tend to not know that many other people might have bought the same product in the past and have different opinion on the quality of the product.

Most online platforms especially jumia give customers the opportunity to express what they feel about the quality of what they are purchasing by giving it Star Rating 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟🌟 from one to five stars depending on level of satisfaction on the said product. 

This mean you can easily know how good a product is based on the previous purchases from other customers. 

You also should try to always give your ratings to any product you buy online to help good products make sale and discourage the bad/fake items from circulating. 

Question 2

Do you check the vendor's rating before buying items from them?

You might be surprised that how could vendor rating affect a product.

It really is a small factor that greatly  affects what you get delivered to your door step.

The vendor rating does not solely depend on one single item sold by the vendor but a combination of past and present sales and performance.  

I have seen people who placed their orders for certain items but get a different thing which might also be of a lower quality delivered to them without proper notification by the vendors. 

I know that is not funny but, what kind of rating will you give such a vendor? Let me know in the comment section. 

Question 3

Do you check the reviews from other customers? 

The question is, "Do you check the reviews from other customers who had bought the same product from the same vendor you intend buying from?"

Product review is a totally different ball game from product review. It is one of the most important factor to getting desired items from online vendors. 

A 5 star ratting might not give details about an item gotten from an online store but a few text to back up the rating is so life saving to customers online.

My friend would have seen the review that states "The shoe was not what I ordered. It was of a low quality and it came extremely late. "

The review in this context is like a short comment about how other buyers feel about the items they have purchased.

Imagine an item with a 1 star rating and a comment that says: 

"the shirt expands and fades for every time I wash it"  

That can definitely never be a good buy. 

Try Checking to see if you can apply the details you have learnt so far on the jumia website ad below. 

It is not necessary you buy anything. Its just a measure for you to see the important parameters we have mentioned so far like Product review, product rating, vendor rating and other factors.

🙂

I'd love to know about your experience in the comment section below. 

Question 4

Do you check how many of the previous buyers were satisfied with the quality of the item?

This is simply saying, "Compare the number of Good reviews and product rating to that of the bad reviews and product rating" The ones with a largest number or highest percentage wins. 

Yes! You only buy the product or item People love and not the one everyone complains about. 

Question 5

How well do you know the product you intend buying?

This is not always much of an issue with jumia because thy section their products according to brand too. This has drastically reduced your risk of buying counterfeit and cloned products. You can just enter jumia website for example and browse it by their brand or various stores whatsoever. 

You can just enter keywords like Adidas, Nike, Nivea etc and you wil be taken directly to their official brand page. Here you can get whatever it is you want without having to worry about the legitimacy of such product because they will be tagged "Official" 

Well, if you think you know your products well, you can just buy from any online vendor you feel you can get your item from. 

Question 6

Do you compare different vendors selling the same product so as to come to a meaningful conclusion to know which vendor has a higher probability of providing a better service or product?

Comparing different vendors will give you a better insight on which vendor provides better offers. They have different prices, discount rates, previous customer reviews etc.

I told this guy that if he had checked those six boxes, he most likely would have not gotten into the situation of having to manage an item he never wanted. How would have had other options. Because he would have selected vendors with a record of faster delivery. 

WHAT CAN I DO IF I GET A WRONG PRODUCT ONLINE?

It is very important that you had checked the return policy for every product you are buying online in order to be on a safe side and not having to worry about how to get your money back from a product you never wanted.

If the site you are buying from is a site with great reputation like Jumia, Konga, Alibaba, Amazon etc, They probably must have a return policy for every product you are buying from them. If you have knowledge of their policies and you have not broken any of those, feel free to return the item you don't want back to them without having to worry about extra cost. 

BENEFITS OF BUYING GOODS ONLINE 

Buying Goods online has its own benefits which includes

1. It is more convenient as you don't have to leave whatever it is you are doing at the moment.

2. You have better pricing due to competition in the online space market

3. You have more control over your decision with no one suggesting something you might not like.

4. There are no physical crowd pushing one another and there is no situation of two or more customers  fighting over a single or scarce product.

5. You have total privacy as regards what you are purchasing for yourself. 

6. You can easily Return product you are not satisfied with depending on the return policy. 

It is very important that one checks the right boxes before attempting to purchase any product online if not so, the risk if buying an undesired item is so high.