How do you handle people who try to sell you things?

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San Francisco had "Street Sheet" in the mid 90s when I lived there. Same concept, a leftist rag (by US standards, probably mainstream by UK standards) that is sold by the homeless in exchange for part of the proceeds. The publishers of Street Sheet tried their best to screen out drug addicts, from what I recall. San Francisco used to have tons of newspaper hawkers, not just the big daily paper but all sorts of far left stuff, way out there communist rags from the International Socialists and Revolutionary Communist Party, among others. That's died down a bit since the city gentrified-the communists can no longer afford even ghetto lodgings.

Ugh, buying things from merchants online is like rocket science to me. I did it just recently too, and I don't think I'll do it that way again.
Ebay or other sites like that are a much better choise for me. Although I've heard some stories about paypal/ebay not being as secure as others but it's good enough from my experience.

I ignore homeless people.

My Mall used to be a good place to walk. Never got bothered by sales people. Then one day a few kiosks started to try to "pull you in" by saying "excuse me, sir, can I talk to you for a minute." The first time I would say a very polite "no" then walk away. But they kept it up. It got so bad I had to tell them "don't talk to me I consider it harassment when one of you salespeople talks to me.". But they kept it up, so I filed a complant with the mall manager. Now they know not to even look in my direction. Thats just the way I like it.

That's exactly what I do.
However if they think I didn't see/hear them they occassionally try to get my attention a second time. This time I just turn around, shake my head and carry on walking.

If someone comes to my house trying to sell me things, I pretend that my dog is really aggressive and doesn't like strangers...when they hear him bark they generally leave anyway and if they don't, I tell them I'm not interested.

I've never had a homeless person ask me for money but even if they did, I wouldn't give them any. However if someone was really desperate I would buy them some food.

It depends on what they're trying to sell me.