A guide to online shoe shopping

Often and again, people ask me where I get my shoes from, since most of them are limited editions, and my response to that is "I get them online". And with that I realise how not everyone is comfortable with online shopping.

I have been doing this for quite some time now, and developed a set of guidelines that make my online shoe shopping safe, simple and very effective, safe because we should all avoid online scams and fraudsters, simple because i feel this should be easier than regular shopping, and effective because I should be able to find anything I'm looking for when shopping online.

So if you are not experienced in online shoe shopping, and want to give it a try, follow this guide lines and all should go well.

First of all, make sure you know exactly what shoes you are looking for, and if you don't know, try to search using the right keywords, brand, model color and name of designer, also know if they are limited, "google is the best search dog" it can literally find anything, given that you give it the right tools, try to use the search tools in google, this can help you identify the exact shoe you want, see the online shops selling them, and compare prices.

Once you have identified what you are looking for, you need get it from the right place. Once again I have been doing this for quite sometime, so I already have a long list of online shops I visit, depending on the type of shoes I'm buying, I tend to avoid the big names, as I prefer to build a more personal relationship with the smaller but very reliable shops. But since you are new to this and might not have this privilege, I suggest you stick to google. Simply make sure you have the correct brand, and model when searching, also remember that .com is not the same as .co.uk, nor .pt, this small thing will have an impact on the results of your search, it can determine what websites google shows, which will affect availability, since some markets are smaller that the others, and some brands have limited market presence in certain markets, this will also affect the cost, since the shipping costs and custom fees are determined by your shipping address.

Whenever I have to use google, I try to use .co.uk, as this has a bigger brands presence in Europe, most UK online shops ship for free, and the custom fees are not there because of the trade agreement with the EU.

After identifying the shoes, and locating them, you need to make sure the online shop is safe to purchase from. My motto is, "the safer the better", you can never be too safe, so try to always have this in mind when shopping on a shop for the first time. Read reviews, comments and always check their social media presence, make sure you use a VPN, if using a credit card payment, only enter your credit card details if you are sure it is safe to do so, for PayPal you can always raise a claim and block the payment, and if needed ask for a refund, wire transfers are not common this days.

Always avoid sites that have you go through many steps to complete your order, basically it should be search the product and select it, check out, pay and get the order confirmation.

Sites that take more than the normal two to five business days to deliver your order don't work for me, unless it is a very rare pair of shoes that have to be ordered from overseas.

Happy shoe shopping and remember to ask, if you need any assistance with this.

Benn!