5 Tips To Buying Expensive Clothes For Less

When it comes to online shopping, it’s an entirely different situation than walking into a store and glancing at the clothes racks. There’s a lot of questions that need to be answered before making a purchase: am I getting a good deal? What kind of sales are going on right now? Will this item be sized correctly? The list goes on and on. In response to this, I have below included five essential online shopping tips that can be used to help anyone get the best deals when shopping for clothes online.

1. The Best Online Retailers

This might not exactly be a tip, but one question that I’m frequently asked is: what are my favorite places to shop online? I’ve been able to narrow down to these three choices–not in any particular order. (My honorable mention does go to Farfetch.)

I’ve found these places to have amazing selections for all different styles of men’s clothing. They also tend to have some pretty crazy sales (50-80% Off) a few times a year.

2. Newsletters and Auto-Fill

The next online shopping tip–or tips really–has to do with receiving newsletters and using auto-fill. When most people are making a purchase or signing up for a website, they’ll leave the bottom part that says, “I wish to receive newsletters and promotions from…” blank.

This is understandable as nobody wants a bunch of junk mail cluttering up their email, but believe it or not, checking that little box can be worth it. If you’re planning on shopping from that retailer online or in-store, the newsletters they send you may contain coupons and great sales.

If you aren’t receiving some sort of notification about deals and sales, you’ll most likely miss the next sale that retailer has–and you could be missing out on something great. Overall, signing up for the newsletter is worth it and greatly recommended.

The second thing has to do with auto-fill. Once you’ve added all your purchases to your cart, the last thing you want is to spend twenty minutes entering address and card details. This setback can make online shopping a pain and not worth the hassle. Auto-fill, however, prevents this.

Google Chrome allows you to have your address, email, and card information already entered, and this can be seriously helpful. If you’re shopping in any kind of hurry, auto-fill lets you check out without having to put in any kind of information. The result here is a painless, simple buying experience that doesn’t cause stress. When doing both of these online shopping tips, you can be sure to save both time and money with these techniques.

3. Secondhand Market

It’s no secret that online shopping can get expensive, and if you’re only buying from designer brands, the cash payout can get pretty high pretty quickly. There are other options though that allow you to get high-quality clothing for less–Secondhand Market.

Websites and apps such as Grailed, Depop, and even Facebook Groups. Out of three, Grailed is the one to visit for more designer clothing.

The people selling on here are going to be selling great-quality pieces of clothing, and if the aim is to get designer for a smaller price tag, this might be the place for you. Chances are though that anyone visiting would find something unique and interesting they like–no matter the preference.

Depop, on the other hand, is an Android app that is especially good for vintage clothing. If you’re looking for more unique pieces with an older, retro feel, Depop is a great option to explore.

The last Secondhand Market opportunity I want to talk about is Facebook Groups. Facebook might seem like an odd place to do your shopping, but the truth is that it offers a lot. There are so many groups to choose from, and they can be very general in how they’re categorized or specific to one brand. This leaves a lot of versatility and flexibility to the buyer. Perhaps my other online shopping tip for this though is to be careful. Facebook groups aren’t regulated, and being cautious about payment method and the seller is key.

4. Reviews and Styling

The fourth online shopping tip has to do with styling and doing your research. When I mentioned the three retailers at the beginning: SSense, Mr. Porter and END–one reason I really enjoy dealing with these websites is that they focus on styling the item with other clothing. SSense especially seems to excel in this area.

A lot of retailers fail to do this, and the result is a lot of customers who are unsure about how to incorporate their purchases into an outfit. Going to a website that focuses on styling can be helpful if you aren’t really sure what matches with what and what looks good.

Another thing I want to briefly touch on is reviews. There’s a lot of Youtube reviews, forums and blogs out there that focus on brand and product reviews. If you’ve never bought from a brand before, reading up on what people have to say can be the difference between getting scammed or getting something great.

The chances are that if you search for it, someone somewhere will have reviewed that particular website or item.

5. Seasonal Sales and The Cart Method

Every major online retailer has seasonal sales. Some of them amazing, some of them just OK. Regardless, you can save a ton of money during these sales if you play your cards right.

The easiest way to take advantage of sales, whether seasonal or not, is by utilizing the cart method.

Basically, the cart method is adding all the clothing you really like but are a bit out of your budget to your shopping cart on the retailer’s website.
Once a sale has started, if any of the particular items in your shopping cart are discounted you will either be notified via e-mail or you will see the price reduction in the cart.

This is a great method to get clothing items you actually want during a sale. The biggest mistake people make when online shopping is scrolling through 200 pages of discounted items which means all the good stuff is instantly bought by savvy online shoppers or bots.

The cart method is a great way around this.

In conclusion,

Buying on the internet doesn’t have to be a complicated experience, and in a lot of ways, the world wide web has a lot to offer a customer that just walking into a store doesn’t. The difference is being able to use these opportunities to your advantage and employing more than one resource to get the best deal or quality item. I believe these online shopping tips can generally improve and simplify your experience online.