The online Christmas shopping mistakes costing you £100s & secret tricks to save

IT’S shopping season as Brits splurge on goodies for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas and more – but don’t fall into the trap of losing money through simple mistakes.

Whether it’s missing out on cash-saving schemes, discount codes, price-slashed secret stores, or even accidentally falling for fake discounts, there are loads of ways you may be leaking precious pounds this holiday season. I’ve been a tech journalist for more than a decade, so I’ve seen every online shopping blunder in the book – and I’ve got loads of ways to save some money.

MISTAKE #1 – IGNORING SECRET STORES

Your first port of call should be the discount stores from top retailers.

Everyone knows about outlet stores for clothing and homeware.

But it’s easy to miss some of the online options that slash hundreds off the price of gadgets.

Apple has two that you need to know about.

The first is the company’s refurbished stores, which is currently slashing the cost of some iPhone models by up to £400.

And they’re properly refurbished, which means they’re cleaned, inspected, tested, delivered with new packaging, and shipped with a full one-year warranty.

Another great option is the Apple Education Store, which is available to teachers, staff, students, and parents of students.

You’ll just need to fit into one of these categories:

• Employees of any education institution – Any employee of a public or private education institution in the UK is eligible.
• Tertiary education students – Students attending or accepted into a tertiary education institution in the UK are eligible to purchase.
• Parents of tertiary education students – Parents purchasing on behalf of their child who is a student currently attending or accepted into a public or private tertiary education institution in the UK are eligible to purchase.

And that’ll save you about 10% on the price of a Mac or iPad, which could be worth hundreds.

Amazon has three of these discount stores.

First up is the Amazon Renewed Store, which is a refurbishment scheme that offers a broad range of products here.

That includes phones, laptops, headphones, gaming consoles, TVs, and smartwatches.

Then there’s the Amazon Student Store here, which is available to anyone with a Prime for Students and 18-22-Year-Olds membership.

Already, that means Brits are eligible for £4.49-a-month Prime instead of the usual £8.99 – a shopper’s delight. And it comes with a six-month free trial too.

But it also grants you access to the Student Store, which is brimming with discounts on clothes, smartwatches, laptops, fitness gear, video games, phone accessories and more.

Your other option at Amazon is the Buy More & Save store.

This is a Prime member exclusive that gets you 10% off the price of your basket.

But you need to buy four qualifying items from a special storefront – so not all Amazon products will be listed there.

But there’s a decent catalogue of products that includes clothes and electronics, so check it out here.

Lastly, check out eBay, which is far from just an auction website these days.

You’ll be able to find renewed products on the eBay Refurbished Store, which serves up significant discounts on lots of items, including laptops, phones, smartwatches, and coffee machines here.

MISTAKE #2 – FALLING FOR FAKE DISCOUNTS

Not all discounts are as good as they seem.

Sometimes you might find that a product seller says that they’ve slashed the cost of an item by 80%.

But actually, the product wasn’t really sold at the claimed full price for very long.

And in fact, the true discount is much lower.

It can be difficult to track this, as all retailers are different, but there are a few ways.

For Amazon, you can simply dump the item link into a service called CamelCamelCamel here, and it’ll show you the full price history for the product.

And it’ll even let you know the item’s average price over its history, as well as its highest and lowest mark-ups so far.

For other retailers, you can try using PriceSpy, which offers a similar service here.

That way you don’t end up wasting money on a product that is actually rubbish, but tricked you into thinking it was premium. The last thing you need is to be returning products over Christmas – or hearing from someone that your pressie was total rubbish.

MISTAKE #3 – MISSING REFER-A-FRIEND SCHEMES

One great way to slash the cost of products is looking at refer-a-friend schemes.

Some companies offer referral bonuses, so if someone at home has shopped with a brand already, you might be able to get a price cut.

For instance, phones giant Mobiles.co.uk has a load of referrals available here, rising up to £75.

Peloton has a very good refer-a-friend scheme that slashes hundreds off the price of its fitness products.

And Sky also has a strong refer-a-friend scheme that will see you and a pal receive up to £100 in vouchers to spend at a range of shops, which include:

• Boots
• Asos
• Sainsbury’s
• Argos
• Pizza Express
• Just Eat
• Tesco
• John Lewis
• B&Q
• Airbnb
• Ikea
• Currys
• Halfords
• Nike
• Lastminute

The top reward of £100 comes from a Sky Glass TV purchase, while the Sky Stream box nets you £50.

MISTAKE #4 – SKIPPING DISCOUNT CODES

Discount codes are the lifeblood of deal-hunters, but they’re so easy to forget about.

And finding them can sometimes be tricky, especially if you’re not a super-shopper seasoned in uncovering bargains.

For a start, there are loads of websites that have checkout codes worth taking a look at.

So try some of these options:

• VoucherCodes
• HotUKDeals
• Groupon
• LatestDeals

Another option is to use browser extensions, which are like add-ons to your internet browser that flag if a code is available.

VoucherCodes has an extension called DealFinder, and there’s a similar service called Honey that you could try.

And on top of that, some retailers list their own codes.

Currys is a great example of this: it has an enormous portal where you can find all of its latest codes – check it out here.

MISTAKE #5 – EXTRA SPEC-IAL? NOT REALLY!

Here’s a tricky one: watch out for useless specs.

It’s easy to be suckered in by flashy numbers and bold claims, but you might be better off with a more middle-of-the-range gadget.

For instance, don’t splash out loads of money on a TV that’s curved or offers 3D visuals. It’s just not worth the extra cash.

Similarly, although OLED screens are truly brilliant (and do provide significantly better contrast), you’re better off focusing on getting a screen that’s a good size and has a 4K (also branded as Ultra HD or UHD) resolution if you’re on a budget.

You can get a big 4K screen for quite cheap these days, and while OLED looks much better, it’ll also tack loads extra onto the price.

Probably more useful is making sure that the TV has enough HDMI ports on the back for your plug-in gadgets (like the Sky box, Fire Sticks, and your games consoles).

And as a bonus, make sure that it supports a few of the common HDR (High Dynamic Range) standards for a good picture, so look out for HDR10, HDR10+, HLG (or Hybrid Log-Gamma), and/or Dolby Vision. It’ll say on the website very clearly if it does.

On top of all this, make sure that you’re not accidentally buying the wrong product. If you buy a 4K Fire Stick to plug into a TV that isn’t 4K, you won’t get a 4K picture from it. You’d be better off buying a cheaper Fire Stick that doesn’t need 4K if your TV doesn’t match.

And for phones, don’t be obsessed by flashy numbers.

Sure, camera megapixels are important – but they’re just one part of what makes a phone snapper good.

The megapixels relate to the size of the image you’re getting – but a big canvas does not equal a great painting.

Similarly, a processor having a high “GHz” number doesn’t mean it’s more powerful.

What you shouldn’t ignore is whether the phone is still due plenty of updates.

Once a phone gets cut off from updates, it not only loses access to new features but security patches too.

So above all else, make sure you check the phone maker to see what its update lifespan is – or it could cost you down the line.

MISTAKE #6 – BUNDLES BUNGLE

Don’t forget to look out for bundles.

I know this might seem obvious, but this is a common mistake – especially with video game consoles.

Consoles and games go together, and it’s pointless having one without the other.

Retailers know this, and will often package the best deals in the form of bundles.

So if you’re looking for pure price cuts on consoles, you might be disappointed.

Certainly don’t buy the console full price and then pick up a game separately.

This is especially important this year, as the new Nintendo Switch 2 has finally landed – and will be at the top of many people’s Christmas lists.

Usually major retailers like Argos and Currys will have dedicated pages for console bundles – and they’ll be fiercely competitive on pricing.

You’ll often find that bundles can be equivalent to (or only slightly pricier than) the cost of buying the console outright.

And buying a bundle will spare your loved one the disappointment of unwrapping a console only to find that they’ve got nothing to play.

MISTAKE #7 – TOP MODEL? NEXT!

It’s a common joke among youngsters: your parent or grandparent buys you the latest video game or console, only for you to open it and find last year’s outdated version. Whoops!

But maybe those gift-givers are on to something.

Now I’ve already warned about buying very old gadgets because they’ll lose out on updates.

But there’s a sweet spot with gadgets from last year and the year before.

You’ll still be able to get years of use from them – but they won’t cost nearly as much as the latest versions.

And you’re far likelier to get a good refurbished deal on them because there’ll be more used models in circulation.

Phones are a great example here, because you usually get a big new model each year.

But typically, it’s only marginally different from the previous year’s device. After all, most people don’t upgrade each year.

And it’ll get the same updates (with new features) as the latest version too.

So you can feel safe buying last year’s unit without feeling like you’re missing out too much.

As well as that, in very mature product categories like phones, tablets, and laptops, even mid-range devices are now very good.

So you don’t need to splash out on the top-end either. Buy a middle-of-the-road device and you might be surprised at how powerful it is.