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Tips for purchasing online – Black Friday, Cyber Monday & Chinese Singles Day.
Looking for a bargain and your online shopping list is ready! Chinese Singles Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday are on the horizon and early-bird deals are already available. Take advantage of this opportunity to find deals and bargains online.
Many international shopping sights are offering November bargains. Some are even offering pre-sale sales, warm-ups, lighting deals and flash sales.
Popular sites for inexpensive clothing deals try Shein, Asos, or Lightinthebox. Try ioffer.com for handbags, jewelry, men’s & women’s clothing.
Joom is another website that offers anything from clothing and kitchen products to neon strobes for your tyres and digital alcohol breath-testers. It’s much like Aliexpress so don’t expect high quality. But, if you are looking for a mosquito repellent patch that you can pin on your baby’s clothes (yes, this is what they advertised!!!!), then this is the website for you.
Now that we can buy 50 face masks locally for 10NIS, there is no need to be shopping on line for those or an eco-friendly version for 125NIS.
Make-up
If you are looking for well known brands of make up at half the price, try the Polish website Lady Make-up – you’ll fall over when you see their prices! Lady Make-up’s prices are half of those on Strawberrynet and of course, considerably less than in local Israel retail and pharma stores.
Gadgets & Electronics
Geekbuying is recommended for electronics. A pair of Bluetooth ear pods retails for 28NIS on Geekbuying. Gearbest’s starting price was $17.
Some of our local readers recommended Zabilo for small and large electronics and appliances. A 50″ Haier Smart TV was selling for 1699 NIS
On Joom, one of the craziest items we saw was a 3D Saturn-shaped lamp that changes color – 16 different shades. The lamp is described as follows: “Ball shape, smooth and comfortable to touch, will not hurt your hands, safe and convenient to use. Made of PLA material, non-toxic and harmless, eco-friendly, Fine workmanship, textured and delicate. Easy to operate, you can clap, touch or use remote control to switch the light”. If you feel that a 3D Saturn-shaped lamp will scale-up your living room, you can get one of these for only 83 NIS
Purchasing clothing online
Choose the right size – take your actual measurements and compare them to the website’s size chart. Even though 100cm is supposed to be 100cm, when it comes to clothing the actual size isn’t always the label size. Chinese sizes are much smaller and you might even need to order 2 sizes larger than you normally do.
Watch out for scams and only buy from trusted sites. Read the product description and customer reviews carefully. Remember that photographs of the products can be deceiving. Clothes described as pure cotton arrive and they are not even close to 50 per cent cotton. We’ve encountered seams that come apart as you try the item on. A tote described as being made from ‘easy to wash canvas’ turned out to be made of plastic.
If your looking for a special outfit take advantage of the made-to-order-according-to-your-size option. On Lightinthebox for example, this adds about $30 to the retail price.
Item value
Make sure that the value of the goods listed by the vendor is in accordance with import charges, taxes and VAT regulations. If your package is valued at $76 instead of $75, you will be liable for taxes.
Top websites for Black Friday& Cyber Monday
| Website |
Product Range |
| gearbest.com |
Mobile phones, tablets, robotic vacuum cleaners, scanners, 3D printers, electronics, smart watches |
| aliexpress.com |
Electronics, gadgets, hiking equipment, toys, clothing |
| banggood.com |
Mobile phones, tablets, clothing, smart clocks, robotic vacuum cleaners |
| Strawberrynet.com |
Beauty Products, Cosmetics, perfumes |
| shein.com |
Women fashion |
| geekbuying.com |
Mobile phones, electronics, gadgets |
| vova.com |
Clothing and electronics |
| Tomtop.com |
Clothing and electronics |
| DHgate.com |
Toys, Costumes for sports, Sport cloth with names of athletes |
| Lightinthebox.com |
Clothing, electronics, gadgets |
| zaful.com |
Women’s swimwear, Swimwear |
| joybuy.com |
Electronics, gadgets, hiking equipment, toys, clothing |
| tidebuy.com |
Women fashion |
| RCmoment.com |
Toys and gadgets |
| TVC-mall.com |
Electronics, gadgets, mobile phones |
| DealExtreme |
Electronics, gadgets |
| soufeel.com |
jewelry |
| Rosegal.com |
Vintage Fashion |
| Rotita.com |
Women fashion |
| dresslily.com |
Women’s fashion, large sizes |
Shop at Macy’s
Has shopping at Macy’s been one of your dreams? The Macy’s website has wonderful, quality items on offer. The have a great sale on now with some items discounted by 60%. A Michael Kors bag that sells for 1217 NIS is on offer for 720 NIS add to that just under 100NIS for shipping and 157 NIS for taxes (Israel personal import tax on items valued at more than $75)
M&S
In South Africa it’s branded as Woolies, but in the UK its known as M&S, Marks & Sparks or by it’s full name Marks & Spencer. Whatever you call it, you are assured of getting good quality merchandise. Standard delivery to Israel is 50NIS which makes restocking the underwear drawer, very, very affordable compared to local options of the same quality.
Shop online in Israel
Since the coronavirus we have all changed our shopping habits and shopping online is our new normal.
ShoppingIL
ShoppingIL is a new Israeli online shopping portal operated by Google. 2720 local vendors are linked into the portal and you can purchase anything; a crotcheted floor mat, Judaica, kitchen gadgets, spices, furniture and many other items.
The site is in Hebrew, so that is a bit of a downer but you can use Googles translate facility to navigate part of the way (make allowances for automatic translations gone wrong).
You select the category, then the vendor and at that point you are transferred to the vendor’s website where you can make your purchase. Having just made a purchase of 7 items on Ladymakeup for 207 NIS with door-to-door delivery, that included a Revlon foundation which I regularly buy from them for around 15 NIS, I was curious to see the price on ShoppingIL. I found the same item on Be (Shufersal pharma) for 62.94NIS reduced from 105 NIS. The cosmetic company, April were selling Estee Lauder foundation for 140 NIS which was reduced from 220 NIS. I bought this same item not too long ago at the duty-free for $30. You have to know your prices
Shufersal
Shufersal has had a lot of negative press in the last week but if you decide to shop with them they have extensive online shopping options (not yet in English). In addition to ketchup, you can purchase anything from a bed to a book shelf, mobile phones and baby monitors.
In 2020 Shufersal were selling a Samsung 50″ Smart TV for 1,799 NIS and now in 2021 they are selling a Haier 50″ Smart TV for the same price. We found the same item on Zabilo for 1699 NIS. There November-December, Black-Friday/Cyber Monday offer is a 200NIS cash-back voucher on purchases in selected departments.
KSP
KSP (yes, the computer and peripherals specialist) has almost every conceivable consumer item on their website. I would never think to order hair dye and developer from them or beard and hairstyling cream (for my husband) but if you need to, you can order these and many other unusual items from them. Their price for Lavazza coffee capsules is outrageous at 41NIS/box and more outrageous than the price at the PAZ gas station – 35NIS/box which I thought was outrageous compared to the Shufersal’s price of 29NIS/box (and sometimes with a coupon at 24NIS/box). Just because websites say there is a special offer, doesn’t mean there actually is. You have to shop around.
Building a website? Need a domain?
If your setting up your new business in Israel, November deals are plentiful. You can buy an inexpensive hosting package for $36 a year and get a free domain (a $15 value) for the first year. Need a paid plugin, extension or template for your WordPress or Joomla website? There are 30%, 40% and even larger discounts on offer this month. GoDaddy is offering a ‘dot website’ domain suffix for $1.99 – that’s a good deal if you can combine it with SEO recommendations.
Is it worth it?
If you’ve spent nothing in October, recovering from Rosh Hashanah in September and saving up for November, it is critical that you manage your purchases. Online or offline – make a list and stick to it. Just because a mobile phone cover is $1.50 doesn’t mean you should order 10. We need to exercise good shopping habits, set a good example and teach our children how to shop wisely.
My search for large plastic storage crates on wheels on AliExpress resulted in a ‘Banana Trip Outdoor Travel Storage Box Cute Banana Case Protector’ – which is actually a plastic holder to keep a peeled banana fresh when you go camping – in pink, green or yellow. Based on this fruitless experience, I will probably buy my plastic crates from Ikea at their regular price of 49NIS each as opposed to 79NIS each at ACE.
Top Tips
- November deals or not, use Zap to compare prices of locally available products all year round. Zap used to be for electronics only but now you can compare holiday packages, furniture, security cameras and even motor bike helmets.
- Make sure you shop around – a magnetic curtain tie-back was selling for 11 NIS on AliExpress, the identical item on Lightinthebox was 25NIS and on Joom the same item was marked at 22NIS.
- Don’t lose your sensibility over an item that sounds like a deal to good to be true.
- Leave an honest review after you have received your goods – others are relying on your experience to make wise shopping choices. If there are no reviews, steer clear. Our household goes by the Hebrew reviews on certain international sites – they are likely to be true and not from the vendor’s own in-house reviewer.
- Remember there are duties on any import to Israel over $75.
When online shopping goes wrong
- Before submitting your order to the vendor make sure that all contact details are correct especially your mobile phone number. The postal authority will be sending a notification to your phone – if there is a typo in your telephone number, you might discover that your long-awaited parcel has been delivered to someone else. The vendor is not responsible and you would then be out of pocket.
- A tip from the postal authority – you might never get your parcel if it is addressed to a Post Office Box. Use your street address and especially for large items.
- In spite of easy return-policy claims by the vendors, often there is little you can do if the goods you received are not what you ordered. Returning the item in its original packaging is often a condition and you will probably have to pay the shipping costs back to the vendor. Be prepared to to shrug off bad purchases on the odd occasion.
- You know the frustration when your order never arrives! Submitting a dispute can be annoying and dealing with a customer service rep who has limited English skills is totally exasperating.
- If you have a PayPal account, we recommend you purchase from vendors who offer this option. Paying for purchases via PayPal has advantages. If there is a dispute with the vendor you can also submit a complaint to PayPal who then take it up with their vendors. Some of the shopping sites give you the option to sign-up for a PayPal account when you process payment.
We don’t wait for Black Friday, Cyber Monday or Singles Day – we buy what we need, when we need it. Over the years, we have bought all manner of things online. The most controversial item we ever bought was supposed to be a large slotted spoon for lifting and draining food items like pasta or deep fried food. Everyone who sees it in our home wants to know why we keep a cat-poop-scoop in the kitchen…a perfect example of the advertised product not matching the item delivered but it definitely does the job.
