Shopeeholic: How much do you spend with online shopping?

Shopee as most of my fellow Filipinos know, is one of the best, easiest choice to shop. Same with Lazada which was my most trusted before. It's an online shop that has almost everything you wanted just like Amazon for foreign countries.

Do you know that over the past days I have been so busy browsing with things that's not even necessary? The payday sale was at July 15th and there are so many items with the best deals and trust me, you can't resist yourself from wanting them, too.

This "adulting" stuff. When you become an adult, and a mom, you always think of household materials. I'm a total adult but young at heart. I still do things I used to love like crafting, and believe it or not, I still crave for crayons and water colors. My young-adult mind tells me to desire these household thingy and ofcourse to still want to join the youngsters trendy stuff.

When this online shopping popped up on my ads I was at first in doubt. Everyone knows, I have trust issues and I don't wat to get scammed. But I risked it and it was not that bad.

Shopee vs. Lazada

Lazada was the first one to launch. And it had the highest trust rate based on my personal opinion and experience. You can shop at any store and you'll pay for shipment at once for the minimum price of Php 119.00 (location based) but nearby places would only cost as low as Php 50 (around $1).

At first I kinda don't trust Shopee for it's quality, also, I don't see a lot of ads about it on tv, only on Facebook so I was a little bit skeptical. Then my cousins started buying cheaper deals having the same quality with Lazada's products. The downside is that you have to pay separate shipping fees for different shops.

I used to love Lazada for the quality products they are selling but over the years it seemed to develop so many different changes. The prices have increased, then they started to remove the single shipping fee option. You now have to pay different shipping fees just like Shopee. Then I started patronizing Shopee for getting lower prices and way better deals. Then one day I discovered Lazada had already changed the minimum shipping fee from Php 119.00 to Php 282.00 in my location so that's the time I stopped visiting the online shop and stick with Shopee.

Why I Choose Online Shopping

My place is far from the capital city of this country. There are things you can't find in this area. Shopping has made it easy for me to find the things with cheaper price. I always calculate my expenses uncluding the cab fare going to shops to look for the stuffs I need. So far, I save money from getting lower offers than visiting stores. No worries with shipment fees since they offer discount vouchers and that is a big save.

Features

They have 1 peso deals mostly for food and groceries.

Mobile load and data is available for different network provider. But Lazada for me offers better and easier loading features.

There is also a chat feature where you can reach your seller or customer.

Free shipping vouchers every month.

There is also a personal shopping wallet that you may top up with money for easier payment and refund system.

And guess what, they accept Coins.ph tansfers and you can use either Bitcoin or Philippines currency. Hope one day they will accept BCH, too.

You also get shopee coins for playing games, daily check ins and posting product reviews which can be used in shopping. As you can see I got 42 coins that is reflected on the upper right corner of the above picture.

They have so called "Flash Deals" where items' prices are slashed upto 99% from its original price. However the time of the low price tags is limited, so if you get a good offer during a flash deal, grab it immediately.

Try to look at the picture below. I saw this 1 peso tag in a flash deal. The photobook's original price is Php 150 and you'll get it for only Php 1. It would really be great if you get a shipping fee of Php 50 and you save Php 99 for this deal.

But don't just shop without checking on other customers' reviews on a particular product. There are shops that sell damaged items or send you the wrong product so you have to make sure from getting feedback from others.

Not all the time online shop is convenient. I also experienced getting defective items but so far, the sellers are responsive and fix problems immediately. The shop might also have security features and policies that protect both sellers and customers that's why it's easier to get a refund unlike before.

Things to look out for

As I said, online shopping is not always convenient. Some shops display low prices just like a clickbait. This is one way to deceive or confuse customers with their products.

The price displayed for this earphone is Php 199. When you click to buy it..

You get to choose different variants of the product and look how different the one that costs Php 199 from the picture displayed.

The exact photo tagged with Php 199 actually costs Php 358. That is way too big difference. Unlike the photobook, when I clicked the product, it really displayed Php 1.00 as its price.

Always compare product and shop ratings. Another thing I would check is the number of items sold.

Compare the product ratings and read reviews to make sure you're getting the best quality of products you want.

Check on pictures and videos, too, to get a better reference for it's quality.

Another thing is to always check your physical wallet if you can afford all the things you placed on cart. 🤣

In the past week I have placed more than a hundred items on my cart. I have checked out several items that are not mine, taking the opportunity of getting more coins I allowed my friends to order using my account. In all that I checked out, only 1 item is mine 😅.

Below is the breakdown of an item paid thru Shopeepay wallet and the funds came from my read.cash earning, transferred thru coins.ph.

It took me two days to decide if I should buy it. There are other important things than this but I realized I should try to give myself small gifts out of my hardwork and I think it's not bad to sometimes loosen up. Our needs are always there and the wants just come and go and I never have had it because I have other priorities. So, you see guys, I go through a lot of drama before I buy things. Lol! 😅

My cart as of now is filled with 87 different items. In the past week I was too compulsive, and maybe anxious again for my sons' birthday. And would you believe... I spent a day searching for birthday materials like balloons and decorations. I placed everything on cart after comparing all the ratings and reviews. The worst, I was not able to sleep the whole night and I ended up going to work sleepy and sooo weak.

My youngest will have his birthday on October and the eldest will be on December. Then I thought I should prepare the earliest possible to make all things happen perfectly as planned.

I even drafted the plan of how it would look like through powerpoint. I just couldn't sleep and spent hours drawing this from my imagination because I felt like my head is aching and is going to explode if I do not release the ideas that kept popping up in my brain.

So, my cart now is full of birthday party needs that will be checked out little by little as soon as I get funds to spend.

I got shopeeholic for two weeks now. Plus there's a payday sale going on and my co-leagues are placing their orders, too in my cart. Ofcourse, I am the one to search for the products they want.

I'm not a compulsive buyer, though.. I call myself compulsive carter 🤣🤣🤣. In tagalog "hanggang cart na lang". Putting things to my shopping cart without actually buying them. 😅 I never bought online that are not useful to me. Everything I get is from my online earnings and I never brought anything that have become idle.

Unlike some other shoppers, they buy what they want without thinking twice. I don't even buy signature bags and stuff like that. As long as I have something to use and it's still in good condition I will never buy a replacement for it. Check wallet from time to time, calculate the budget and if there are extras then that's the time to maximize it for random stuffs that sparks at Shopee.

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Hope you enjoyed reading about my Shopee addict moments.. . have a great day!

How about you, are you or have you become a shopeeholic? How much did you spend for it?