Archive for the ‘Best Buy’ Category

Have you visited our partner ministries’ shopping pages lately? We’ve grown to 150 online stores. It’s gotten so that we can honestly say that if we don’t have it, you don’t need it. Many of the stores that we offer are companies that you’ve bought from for years, either online or in their “brick and mortar” stores located in shopping centers and malls.

So why should you shop online here at “ShopOnline” with stores like Walmart or Best Buy or Men’s Wearhouse or Sally Beauty Supply or…? Well, you get the idea. We offer a lot of stores that might be right down the street from you. Why buy from their online site instead of just popping into their store?

There are several good answers to that questions. The most obvious from the stand­point of ShopOnline is that when you buy from the store, they don’t pay a commission to the ministry of your choice. This site exists to generate commis­sions from online shopping for the ministry of your choice. You’ll pay no more for having shopped online, but your ministry will receive a commission on all of your purchases from this site.

The second reason is that you can often find the same product cheaper online than from the same vendor’s brick and mortar stores. The cost of doing business is less online, so the retailers can often offer better prices to online customers. I have read lots of letters to the editor of computer magazines saying that they have shopped online at BestBuy.com (or wherever) for a computer or a cable or whatever, and then gone to the physical store to buy the item, only to find that it is consid­erably more expensive in the store than on the store’s website. The pastor of one of the churches supported by ShopOnline told us that when he was in the market for an auto part this summer, he found it online for almost half what it cost in the parts store. So shopping online can save you money, even if you have to pay for shipping (which a lot of times you don’t). Comparison shop at your ministry’s shopping page before you buy something at a store.

The next reason is that there is a greater selection of products online. I have a Super Walmart just a couple of miles from me and it is crammed full of “stuff,” but they don’t have as much “stuff” as Walmart.com (one of our retail partners here on ShopOnline) offers on their website. Walmart.com has more than one million products for sale on their site — far more than they could stock at a local store. Their website doesn’t have every­thing that the store has (for instance, you can’t buy many grocery items online), but they have literally tens of thousands of other products available online that they don’t stock in their stores. Walmart.com isn’t the only store this is true of. Any of our online retail partners carry more products on their websites than they stock in their stores. So shop for hard-to-find items on your ministry’s shopping page. You might be surprised at what you can find.

The last reason I’m going to lay out for you can save you a lot of money. Local stores might have a small section of closeout merchandise, but many of their websites have a ton of deeply discounted closeouts. I’ve bought some brand new merchandise for pennies on the dollar in the closeout sections of some of the retailers featured on ShopOnline — and every time I did, not only did I save a pile of money, I also earned a commission for one of our ministry partners.

I used to work in a computer store near Chicago. Many, many times I would give a great product demon­stration and sales pitch to a customer, only to lose him to a different store that sold the same thing cheaper than we did. We called those people SHABEs — Shop Here And Buy Elsewhere. I encourage you to become a SHABE (to some extent). Browse the aisles at local stores, then come back to ShopOnline and comparison shop the same products from the same store’s online sites. (I do not recommend you take the time and build up the hopes of a commis­sioned sales­person at a store only to order online to save some bucks. If someone gives you great service and depend on a sales commission for all or part of their income, do the right thing and buy from that person.)

ShopOnline can be a powerful tool for raising money for your ministry. I works every time you use it. Buying from the online sites of some of your favorite retail stores can help your ministry finan­cially. Bookmark your ministry’s shopping page and check it first for all of your shopping needs — those things that you have always bought online, and a surprising array of things that you’ve never thought of shopping online for before.