According to Business Insider, for the first year, Americans are expected to spend more money online than in stores this holiday season.

Shoppers plan to spend 51% of their holiday shopping budget online, compared to 42% in stores, according to Deloitte's survey of more than 4,000 Americans.

This is the first year that online sales are expected to exceed in-store sales. Last year, respondents told Deloitte that they expected to spend 47% of their budget in stores and 47% online. In every year prior to 2016, expectations for in-store shopping exceeded online sales predictions.

Digital Commerce 360 states, last year alone, consumers spent an average of $2.6 billion on each of the following days: Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 23), Saturday (Nov. 25) and Sunday (Nov. 26), according to Adobe Digital Insights data.

Consumers are obviously trending toward online shopping for their holiday purchases and District Tech Consulting is here is make sure that your shopping experience is productive and safe.

District Tech Consulting has developed a list of key cyber-shopping best practices that everyone should follow to stay safe this holiday season.

Following these simple tips will allow you to enjoy the benefits of online shopping while also protecting your devices and accounts:

1.       Know the Company

Anyone can set up shop online under almost any name and buy an ad on social media. Confirm the online seller's website, physical address and phone number before you make a purchase in case you have questions or problems.

• If you aren’t familiar with the product or the company selling it, dig a little deeper. Type the company or product name into your favorite search engine with terms like “official site,” “review,” “complaint,” or “scam.”  If something comes up, you should probably avoid the company.
• A company’s name will come right before the “.com” or “.net” for its website address. For example, the legitimate website of a company called “STORE” is NOT www.STORE.eg.com. The correct website would be www.STORE.com – ALSO, beware of sites that attempt to spoof the name of legitimate companies/site such as www.niike.com (note the extra letter in the word) which you can easily miss if you aren’t paying attention.
   

2.       Don’t Click on Pop-ups

Most pop-up ads are malicious.  Clicking on pop-up ads can download viruses, spyware, malware, and other unwanted software to your computer. Hovering your cursor over a button or link can be a good indicator of what site the pop-up is trying to take you to, but in our opinion, it is simply best to avoid them. 

If you do happen to get a pop-up message that asks for your financial information while you are browsing, DO NOT reply or follow the link. Legitimate companies don't request your information this manner.

3. Protect Your Information

When making an online purchase, you will likely have to enter sensitive information such as your credit card number, name, mailing and email addresses. Do so with caution!

Follow these simple tips:

• Email is not always a secure method of transmitting financial information. Look for indicators that the site is secure, like a URL that begins with https (the "s" stands for secure). Unfortunately, no indicator is foolproof; some fraudulent sites have forged security icons.
   
• Unlike websites, mobile apps don’t have a visible indicator like https. Researchers have found that many mobile apps don’t encrypt information properly, so it’s a bad idea to use certain types of mobile apps on unsecured Wi-Fi or at all via mobile device. If you plan to use a mobile app to conduct sensitive transactions – like shopping with a credit card, or using a debit card to access your bank account – use a secure wireless network or your phone’s data network (often referred to as 3G or 4G).
   
• If you must use an unsecured wireless network for transactions, use a VPN and use the company’s mobile website — where you can check for the https at the start of the web address — rather than the company’s mobile app.
   
• Check the website’s privacy policy. You really should know what personal information the website operators are collecting, why, and how they're going to use the information. If you can't find a privacy policy — or if you can't understand it – consider taking your business to another site that's more user-friendly. 
   
• Don’t “save” your information on the company’s website just to “make check-out faster” next time! Do you really trust them to protect (and/or NOT resell) your personal information?
   
• Know if your browser is set to auto-fill your personal information. Either turn off this setting or make sure your personal information is password protected.

Remember, it’s great to shop online but it’s equally important to take security precautions. Take the extra time needed to research the company, find a secure connection, and enter your personal, financial information. Great deals can vanish at the click of a button if you’re not careful!