There really isn’t anything you can’t buy online these days as pretty much any item and service you can think of is being offered by dozens, maybe even hundreds of providers. In the case of arts and crafts supplies therefore, it’s hardly surprising that there are literally thousands of vendors selling all manner of bits and pieces for every type of craft under the sun. From home card making to decoupage and so many others besides, anything you need to make anything at all is literally no more than a few clicks away at any one time.
However, just as is the case with all other items and services across the board, all online craft retailers are not cut from the same cloth…no pun intended. According to the experts at Handy Hippo crafts, the differences between competing vendors really are night and day when it comes to both value for money and quality of products alike. Just as they say an artist is only ever as good as his or her paintbrush, you cannot expect to get the most from your craft ventures if you have substandard supplies. As such, it pays to buy the best – especially when the best happens to cost so very little when shopping online.
So, with all of the above in mind, here’s a quick look at just a few tips from the experts on how to make sure you take home only the very best every time and avoid being lumped with a package of duds:
1 – Dedication to the Cause
It’s one thing for an online vendor to also sell arts and crafts supplies as a side-line, but it’s another entirely for them to specialise in nothing but arts and crafts supplies. In this instance, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out which of the two is going to be most likely to come up with the goods when it comes to higher-quality wares, as dedicated specialists tend to take some beating. It will be obvious whether or not you’re looking at a dedicated specialist the moment you land on their webpage, so be sure to take this into account before buying.
2 – Professionalism
Something else to take into account is precisely how professional or otherwise the retailer comes across. These days, it technically isn’t too difficult or overly expensive to build and run a website that looks and works pretty much like a dream from top to bottom. As such, sites that don’t measure up to the mark tend to be pretty strong signs of retailers that either do not know or do not care what they are doing…or both. Regardless of what it is you are shopping for, it’s never a good idea to do business with these kinds of brands as if they can’t be bothered looking after their own online shop-front, you can’t expect them to deliver the goods.
3 – Price Promises
These days, there’s really only one reason why any given retailer would not offer a full and rock-solid price promise across the board on everything being sold. That reason is of course the fact that the prices are not in fact the best on the market and that their customers could indeed therefore get a better deal elsewhere. Price guarantees used to be something of a rare offer that set certain retailers apart from others, but these days are actually more prerequisites for any vendor you’ll ideally want to do business with.
4 – Satisfaction Guarantees
The exact same principle also applies to general satisfaction as if for any reason you are unhappy with the total service package as a whole, you shouldn’t be expected to simply accept and deal with it. Instead, everything should be covered by an all-encompassing guarantee which basically encapsulates the retailer’s confidence that they are in fact doing their job properly. So, if there’s no sign of and kind of satisfaction guarantee, it might be worth trying elsewhere.
5 – Strong Feedback
Last but not least, perhaps the single most important rule when it comes to shopping online with any kind of retailer across the board is that of making sure they have reassuring feedback before going ahead. The web gives the world the uniquely privileged opportunity to look directly into the performance of a brand in the thoughts and minds of its actual customers – 100% impartial and unbiased feedback that can be trusted across the board. So, if there’s strong feedback to be found that paints a positive picture of the seller, chances are you’re onto a winner.