7 Online Shopping Habits That Are Actually Saving Americans Money

93% of Americans made an online purchase in the last week, according to a recent FinanceBuzz survey in partnership with Bank of America. And 40% of Americans say online shopping actually helps them manage their finances. That runs counter to the usual assumption that shopping and saving money don't mix.

Think about it: You're in a store, you find what you want, and you pull out your phone to check if it's cheaper online. Maybe you've felt a little guilty about that. Turns out that habit, and others like it, might be doing more for your wallet than you think.

A lot of online shopping habits that look impulsive or even wasteful are actually smart: comparing prices, earning rewards, avoiding costs you don't need to pay. Here are seven examples.

7 online shopping habits that are actually saving Americans money

1. They test in the store but buy online

Nearly three out of four (73%) shoppers have walked into a store, tested a product, and later planned to buy it online. More strikingly, 56% have actually completed that online purchase while still standing in the store.

Now, that's a move that makes retailers cringe. Far from being indecision on the buyers' part, it's comparison shopping at its smartest. Walking into a store lets you answer the questions a product page can't. Is the color what you expected? Does it feel sturdy? Is it the right size? Once these answers are clear, your phone helps you find a lower-priced version of the same product or a coupon that the register was never going to offer.

In a blink, the store becomes the showroom while the checkout happens wherever the deal is best. And there's a rewards wrinkle here too.

Checking out on your phone in the aisle counts as an online purchase as long as you complete it online, and some cards pay a bonus rate on exactly that. Let's use an example card to make it concrete. The Bank of America^® Customized Cash Rewards credit card lets cardholders choose online shopping as a bonus category with elevated earnings, with 6% cash back in the first year.

Ring up the same item at the register a few feet away, and it wouldn't earn that rate. Same product, same store, and the phone version is the one that pays you back.

2. They use credit card rewards as a savings strategy

44% of shoppers use credit card rewards as part of their online savings strategy. Not all of them are looking for the same perks, though.

• 72% consider cashback categories before deciding which card to use
• 60% check for cashback bonuses before buying
• 58% have redeemed credit card rewards for retailer discounts
• 53% have picked where to shop based on the credit card rewards they could earn

Overall, 70% say rewards are at least somewhat important when choosing a card. Credit card perks are hardly an afterthought here. They're the actual plan. It makes sense too. If you're already of a mind to buy a product, why not get a little something back?

Going back to our example card, online shopping is one of the options cardholders can choose for elevated earnings. And what counts as online shopping is broader than it sounds. Orders from Amazon, Walmart, Etsy, and Nordstrom qualify, and so do monthly bills for cable, internet, and streaming from companies like Comcast and Netflix.

3. They save the big, emotional purchases for in-person shopping

Look at what people buy online versus in-store, and a pattern emerges immediately. 77% of shoppers typically buy cable and internet plans online, 70% buy small electronics online, and 62% buy books and media online.

On the other end of the spectrum, just 22% of shoppers buy appliances online, and only 4% of shoppers are comfortable buying a car online. These numbers suggest people already sort items into "comfortable buying online" and "need to see in person first."

Valerii Apetroaiei/Adobe

The everyday products that are basically identical no matter where you buy them are the ones shoppers purchase online (likely with a few tabs open). The big, emotional, "I need to see it and touch it" purchases stay offline where trust matters more than a five-dollar difference.

4. They force a cooldown on big purchases by switching devices

Three out of four (75%) shoppers switch from their phones to desktops or laptops before a bigger purchase. On average, that transition happens for purchases around $274 (though the typical, median cutoff is closer to $100). That's not a lot of money, but it's enough to give you pause. It's not a long delay, either. It may take a couple of minutes to walk to the other room, open the laptop, and wait for it to wake up.

Maybe it's easier to read product reviews on a bigger screen or enter payment information on a bigger keyboard. But those couple of minutes are also the kind of friction that interrupts an impulse.

It's the same reason experts recommend waiting 24 hours before a big purchase, just compressed into a much smaller timeframe. The effects are similar as well. Sometimes, you press "add to cart" anyway, but when you don't, that short cooldown has stopped an impulse purchase. The bigger the price tag, the more useful a little delay turns out to be.

5. They pad the cart on purpose to kill the shipping fee

The vast majority, or 94% of people, say free shipping is the deciding factor in where they shop, and 81% admit to adding an item specifically to cross a free-shipping threshold. They do it often, too: 13% do it almost every time, 26% often, and 42% sometimes.

At first, this sounds like exactly the kind of online shopping habit personal finance experts warn against. You're buying more to save on shipping. The discipline lives entirely in the caveat: pad the cart with something you were already going to buy so you'll just get it sooner. Pad it with a random item that caught your eye, and you've just spent more to save on shipping.

Think about it this way: Turning a $10 shipping charge into $0 by adding a $12 pack of laundry soap you'd buy anyway is hardly impulse spending.

6. They won't shop anywhere that charges for returns

Nearly 7 in 10 shoppers (69%) actively avoid retailers that don't offer free returns. Return fees quickly eat into any discount you may have scored in the first place, and some retailers have restocking fees on top of that.

Avoiding paying for returns is its own quiet form of savings; it protects the money you've already spent from turning into money you've lost.

Kassandra/Adobe

7. They shop when they have time, not under pressure

Nowadays, 84% of people have bought something from their bed, and 71% have shopped during working hours. Gone are the days when shopping had to be a dedicated trip.

Buying things during idle moments like a lunch break or the ten minutes before falling asleep gives you time to compare prices, read reviews, and let an item sit in your cart while you think it over.

But not every item you buy before bed is a good decision. It all depends on the level of pressure. Buying something during your idle moments has more room for second-guessing than getting it during a single rushed sitting. After all, ten minutes on your lunch break beats five minutes of panic or doubt in the checkout line.

And those same idle minutes are enough for the small money tasks that usually get skipped. On our example card, Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards cardholders can change their bonus category once per calendar month from online banking or the mobile app. If you know a run of online orders is coming, switching to online shopping takes about as long as scrolling one more time before you put the phone down.

Bottom line

None of these online shopping habits look like financial discipline on the surface. Testing products in-store and buying them on your phone, padding a cart to dodge a fee, shopping from bed, and using credit card rewards sound like small indulgences, not strategy. Still, almost half of Americans manage their money through these habits rather than despite them.

Showrooming often lets consumers find lower prices, and switching devices could slow down the rush that leads to risky purchases. The more you think about it, the more you see that your habits were never the problem. You could say they were the plan all along.