We all get crazy busy at times, but you don’t have to let the mid-week madness leave you without your essentials.
With all the online options available nowadays, you can get a lot more done in a week (or even in an evening) than ever before.
Groceries: Just because you need to hit the store doesn’t mean you need to hit the road.
Pick n’ Pay and Woolies and several others big name stores, all offer online shopping. Choose what you want, pay electronically and either have it delivered or (if you don’t fancy the delivery fees) choose your local branch and collect your already-bagged-up goods in a matter of minutes.
Beauty products and household cleaning products: From the Faithful-to-Nature organic range (my personal favourite) to good old-fashioned Clicks, you can order everything online from shampoo to lipstick and back again. Both these online stores will also cover your household cleaning needs with essentials like surface cleaners, laundry soap and toilet paper just a click away.
Clothing: You can get a lot of stuff online, including a new little black dress for date night. These days most online stores allow free returns. So if it doesn’t fit, you can send it back. Simple! Our favourite online clothing stores of the moment are Spree, Zando, and Superbalist, and good old MR. Price.
Books and Entertainment: Back in the day we used to order our books from Kalahari. Now they are just a small part of the wonder that is Takealot. You can get pretty much anything on Takealot, and no online shopping list would be complete without them. We still love ordering books, though.
Tickets: Want to see a show? Computicket is a household name for most people these days. Not only are they the number one ticket store, but they have a pretty neat mobile app too, so you can grab those big concert tickets the moment they open the sales lines.
Miscellaneous & Big Deals: We have a number of awesome online sites that bring us all kinds of goodies from cat-scratching-posts to Fitbits to glow-in-the-dark hair extensions. Many of these guys also have great daily or weekly deals and special offers. We always keep an eye on Bid or Buy, Daddy Deals, One day only and of course, Takealot.
Travel: Walk-in travel agencies are a thing that our parents talk about. The rest of us have embraced the wonders of the internet. From flights and bus tickets to hotels and booked cars, and even Uber, we do it all online. Travelstart and Cheapflights are good places to start your search. We also use websites like Trip Advisor to read up reviews and help us make our choice.
Specialized Items: If there’s a brand, store or specific genre that you’re looking for, we recommend searching online. Most niche markets have an online store to satisfy their needs. We love Yuppie Chef for our kitchen and the hippie gear from Shining Things for our summer holiday T-shirts! Websites like this one remind us that even small businesses are selling online these days, so if you’re looking for something specific or local you should run an online search before you decide that you don’t have time to go get it in person.
Price Check: Want to make sure you’re getting the best possible price? No problem. Just check it on Price check.
Pre-Owned Goods: Just because you’re buying online doesn’t mean you have to buy new. Gumtree has been around for a long time now, and they are pretty good about flagging and removing dodgy advertisers. Another great way to shop second-hand goods is on Facebook! Most communities have local buy and swap groups on Facebook these days. If you don’t have a local group, start one!
We could probably go on forever telling you about all the great online marketplaces out there. It seems that there is an E-commerce store for just about everything you can imagine. If you can buy it anywhere, you can probably buy it online.
So before you do yourself a damage running errands, ask yourself “Could I be doing this online?”
You might just save yourself a whole lot of time, and of course, you get to shop at any time of night or day 😉
