How I shop- tips.

[melissaphora]

I made a post on my blog about a month or so back with tips and ramblings about the way I shop.  I figured I'd re post it here.

• When I am shopping online, the first thing I do is go to the sale/clearance section. Then before even looking around I click View all, and filter it to Price: Low to High. THEN I browse all of those. Whatever peaks my interest, I click on and put in another tab to look at. I then filter through those myself by what interests me/is worth it/in stock and come back later to them if I can’t decide.
• Remember, you do not need to make a decision right away, no matter how badly you feel you do, and trust me, I KNOW THAT FEELING.
• Another thing I do is before I buy something, I really take a good look at it. This is harder to do online, but still doable. I compare it to what I already own that is similar and I really try not to buy duplicates unless they are similar but have a distinguishing difference and that makes it worth it. This is very helpful when buying eye shadow palettes, because I love to just buy ones with a couple pretty colors but if I break it down its easier. IE: What colors do I already have? What colors do I have really similar dupes to? and then I compare that to What colors do I love? What colors do I have nothing like? and usually it comes out to a percentage. Such as my last palette I bought it had 8 shadows out of 10 that I did not have already, so that was 80% vs 20%. I factored in a couple other things and that made it worth it. The other palettes I was comparing it to I had more like 40% of the shadows already so the 10-20% of colors I didn’t and loved was not worth it.
• You can also break it down even more, by price. I don’t do this myself but many do and if you’d like help breaking down prices and comparing from singles to palettes etc let me know and I’d be happy to help (even though I hate math /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />)
• I also have a budget. It varies, but is generally around $50. Sometimes $100, sometimes $25. So lets say it’s $50. First I figure out if I need to factor in shipping, handling, and tax into that or not. Like if you’re buying from sephora and you spend $50 it ships for free, so, I don’t. Or if I’m putting it on my mom’s debit card and not mine, generally $50 means that is how much I can spend in product but I can go over $1-10ish dollars due to tax, shipping, handling, and a few bucks lee way. If its my own money on my own card, I’m more strict because I can’t go over, so I factor it all in and see how much it would be and am constantly using the calculator on my computer.
• Something very important to me is research. 95% of the time before I buy a product I’m lemming for I look up swatches and reviews on it. Reviews and swatches are important if you’re buying online. And one can be more important than the other depending on what. If I’m buying eye shadow palettes, reviews aren’t so much important to me because I know the product quality (IE: I generally buy urban decay palettes so i know what i’m getting) but swatches? Very important. I Google the product with “swatches†at the end and see what comes up. I try to find people with my skin tone so I can see what it looks like on me, or blogs w/good quality pictures. I also look at many, not just one or two. And I still read the reviews. If I’m buying a product I have not used before or especially if I am not familiar with the brand, I look up swatches but more so focus on reviews.
• I am a promo code lover.   Okay, I am very good at and dedicated to finding promo codes. Most come from my email, and I find others by searching online and sometimes other blogs. I share them all with you guys here because I want you to know of them. Before I check out at any site, I almost always enter a promo code. Now generally this is for sephora, but this includes all beauty sites too. I post a variety of promo codes if you flip back through them and look. I want to stress that sephora always, always has a promo code for you to use. You can always get something free or something off with your purchase. If you do not know where to go about doing this or finding these, just ask me for help and I’d be glad to point you in the right directions. I do try and make sure there are not any active promo codes for other sites before I check out as well, because once you do you can’t go back on 99% of sites.

XO,

Melissa