This past weekend, one of our staff writers was doing some Holiday Shopping in a major mall.  Never losing focus on eye cream research, he took a long, hard look at various skin care products in the beauty section.  While malls and department stores thrive on skin care and beauty product sales, it raised us to pose a question – are you better off buying skin creams online?  

Today we’ll look at eye creams, in particular, and compare the pro’s and con’s of buying at the mall versus buying online. 

Buying Retail – The Advantages

• Retail malls normally provide an ample amount of samples
• Knowledgeable sales staff can explain the benefits of eye creams in person
• Professional displays and visuals provide in depth information
• Many different brands are available at arms length
• Products are paid for and obtained in the same moment

Buying Retail – The Disadvantages

• Sales people are incentivized by commissions and bonuses
• Retail products are subject to exquisite packaging demands in order to compete – which is passed on to the consumer
• Retail contracts prohibit certain brands from circulation, shelf space
• Purchases can be subject to State sales tax
• Sales force can be pushy, invasive, and annoying

Buying Online – The Advantages

• No pushy sales force
• Information is at your fingertips
• Ingredient claims can be researched and backed up
• When products are bought direct, customer service is superior and returns are handled directly by the manufacturer
• Sales tax is only applicable if you buy from a company within your own State
• Consumer reviews are widely available
• Product packaging isn’t as expensive, meaning a superior product in less appealing packaging can be a great value in terms of therapeutic benefits on the skin

Buying Online – The Disadvantages

• Companies aren’t always as reputable
• Customer must wait for product to arrive
• Some consumer reviews could mislead consumers
• No face to face interaction or "testing of product

Those are the hard, cold facts, folks.  While you can see there are numerous pro’s and con’s of each way to buy eye creams, there are numerous items we’d like to weight in on.  Here is our analysis and additional information on the subject. 

Retail or Mail Order?  Final analysis…..

While we love a trip to the mall to buy pretty much anything, there are many factors that shy us away from buying skin care products, such as eye creams, in retail outlets.  For starters, we don’t like the fact that sales staff is incentivized to sell certain brands at certain times of the year.  We’ve worked in enough retail outlets to know that there are always sales contests that reward sales staff for selling certain brands.  When a certain incentive is offered to someone in sales, it can often times sway the customer away from buying the best product for their skin’s needs in order for the sales person to make their sales goals or obtain a commission.

Sales tax, depending on what State you are located in, can play a big part of the final price.  Just think of annualizing all of your skin care purchases and multiple the number by the local sales tax percentage.  That’s pretty hefty.  We usually know which products we like, and at times, we will visit malls and find products of interest, only to take our search to the web to find them for sale for cheaper.  Often times, the web provides sources for discount codes, coupons, and free shipping offers. If you can navigate the web with ease, you will have no problem finding skin care products for sale at cheaper prices – without pushy sales people.

Let’s look at the packaging aspect of the eye cream business.  Sure, you can go to the mall and find the eye-appealing La Prairie Eye Lifting Cream – packaged to the nines, and arguably the best packaged skin care product in ages.  BUT, you will pay a premium for this packaging.  You have to ask yourself, is having a nice product on display in your bathroom worth a 100% mark-up at times? Or, would you rather have an eye cream that WORKS yield better skin, less dark circles, and less puffiness – without the fancy packaging? 

The world wide web is full of useful information. If you can find this information, as well as sift through various eye cream reviews, there is no doubt that you can find the best eye cream at a much cheaper price point, without any greedy sales force trying to earn commissions and talk you into a product only to fatten their paycheck.

Keep those facts in mind as you shop for eye creams and other skin care products – happy surfing!