I know this blog is about the various Quilting shops I visit in my travels and this includes those that I visit online. If you're like me you're always looking for that elusive piece of fabric or the latest book on quilting or the newest quilting tool however, you can't always find these items in your favourite quilt shop, maybe not even in Australia. So where do you begin to look? In my case, and I suspect many others, you look online. However, you may not be too sure how to go about searching and buying the quilting products you're after? Or you're concerned about how safe buying on line is?
After chatting to the Contractor who delivers our parcels, he told me that his mother-in-law hadn't had a very good experience buying online. In fact, she found the credit card details she had provided a US quilting shop were stolen and used by the thief. Not a great experience for her. Hearing this made me realise that I've been very lucky and overall have had a positive experience, so why not share my experiences I thought?
Let's begin at the beginning...the first step is decide how you want to pay for the items you've purchased. The reason I say this is that you want to protect yourself as much as you can when buying on line. There are a lot of choices ranging from opening up a separate transaction account with your bank and apply for a Visa or Mastercard debit card that you can use for online purchase that is linked to this account - You can only spend as much as you have in the account. Another alternative is to apply for an additional credit card with a low limit and use this for your online purchase.
I'd also recommend opening up a Paypal account [ www.paypal.com ] which you can use for your online purchase. Paypal gives you the option of using either a transaction account and or a credit card to pay for your purchases. Visit the site and you can get more information on Paypal so you can make your mind up.
Personally, I have a combination of all three: a transaction account with the Visa Debit card + credit card (though I limit the use of it online unless I'm very sure the site is secured) + Paypal account (this is the one use whenever I can given the protection they afford to their users).
Okay so you have some ideas of how to fund your online purchases. Where to next? My next blog will start you on your online shopping journey so check in again.
