If you’ve waited until the last minute to do your holiday shopping, it’s not too late. Trae Bodge, smart shopping expert at TrueTrae, joined TheStreet to discuss her tips for scoring the perfect gifts when time is running out.
Related: How to survive the holiday season without breaking the bank
Full Video Transcript Below:
CONWAY GITTENS: There’s always those last minute holiday shoppers. What are your tips for those procrastinators?
TRAE BODGE: Yeah so thankfully it is pretty easy to get things quickly. But what I would say is this. If you are scratching your head and you’re not sure what to get someone, give them a gift card. Gift cards are always among the most popular gifts, if not the most popular gift, every single year. And so gift cards are a great option if you’re not sure what to buy.
And thankfully, gift cards have come a long way. There are sites like gift card, Granny.com, or perfectgift.com, and you can actually customize a gift card with a photo that you’ve uploaded a special message to that recipient that will be right on the gift card, and then the recipient has some flexibility to where they can choose to receive a plastic visa card that they get in the mail with your picture on it that you’ve uploaded. Or they can opt for a gift card for a certain retailer. So there are options on the giver and the receiver’s end to make that gift really special.
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CONWAY GITTENS: And so what are some of the must have apps or extensions to save money during this holiday shopping season?
TRAE BODGE: Yeah, so Slickdeals, like I mentioned, is one of my favorites. Another one that I like is called coupon cabin. And the reason why I like coupon cabin is because they have a website. They also have a browser extension, which means once you’ve installed it, it will automatically offer up cash back opportunities, coupons. It’ll run coupons for you at checkout, and it has an app that you can use in store. So when you’re in store on Black Friday or any other day during the season, you can look through in-store exclusive deals and show them right at checkout and save a little bit extra when you’re there. So those are two of my favorites.
And then I would also recommend that if you have retailers that you love to shop with, make sure that you sign up for their emails and also their loyalty programs. And many retailers have free loyalty programs. I think Target, for example, is a really good one because you can get extra benefits, exclusive discounts, you can earn points towards free merchandise. So make sure that you’re signing up for those loyalty programs, because I am seeing that retailers are really leaning in to those loyalty programs to secure that customer, and the customer can really benefit from belonging to that program.
