It pays to shop online
Your weekly food shop, your next holiday, a new car insurance policy, a Charlie bear or simply a small gift for that special someone; For convenience and bargains, the internet is by far the best place to shop! Most high street retailers have an online store where you can browse at your leisure 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Thanks to lower overheads and increased competition, online stores are fighting for your custom. Now you can save more of your hard-earned cash by taking advantage of cashback sites.
It’s akin to being paid to shop online. Next time you plan to make a purchase online, rather than making the purchase directly on the retailer’s website, register with a cashback site and make the purchase via the cashback site. After a set period of time (usually after payment or delivery of your purchase) the cashback site will reward you with your cashback. Cash back is usually given as a percentage of the purchase price, ranging from 2% from holiday bookings to 15% for travel insurance. Your cashback can be deposited into your paypal account or delivery to your door in the form of a cheque (once it reaches a set amount, £20 at quanti.co.uk for example).
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Here is how it works:
- It’s Mum’s birthday in a few days; what do you get her? maybe a cook book, so off to Amazon’s website you go..
- On Amazon’s website you find the ideal book much cheaper than it would be on the high street; But wait, don’t buy it straight away.
- Do a search on Google for ‘amazon cashback‘ and find a cashback site that is offering cashback for goods purchased on Amazon. Alternatively browse/search through cashback sites, either ones that you use or search for ‘cashback sites‘ on Google.
- Once you’ve found a cashback site featuring Amazon, register your details with the cashback site, you have to do this before you can participate in any cashback offers (unless you have registered with the site previously).
- Then initiate your purchase from the cashback site. Normally by way of clicking on a simple text link.
- You will then be directed to Amazon where you can purchase the book directly through the Amazon website in the usual way.
- Once your order is paid for (for some offers the order needs to be shipped), the cashback site will then give you your cashback.
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In some cases it’s even possible to earn cashback on ‘Reserve & collection’ purchases. So if for instance you planned on buying a new car stereo, rather than making the purchase at your local Halfords, why not order your car stereo online and then go collect and pay at your local store. Verification is required in order to get your cashback, see individual program descriptions for more information.
What’s in it for the cashback sites?
Cashback sites are affiliated to online stores (Amazon in the above example), every time a cashback site encourages a customer to buy something from Amazon, the cashback site receives some commission. The cashback site is in effect sharing that commission with you. The more customers a cashback site sends to Amazon, the higher commission rate they can negotiate with Amazon, which the cashback sites then pass back to the customer.
Pros and cons of using cashback sites
Pros: You are in effect getting a discount, quite often for shopping at the same stores you would normally shop in.
Cons: You don’t normally get your cashback until it reaches a certain amount. So you could be waiting weeks or quite possibly months to get your hands on your cashback. You have to signup to a cashback site to get the discount and sometimes you may have to sign up to a number of cashback sites to get the offers you’re after.
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Here are some examples of the many cashback rewards available
- American Express credit cards - offering £27-£40 once your application is approved then a cashback offering of 5% within the first 3 months and 1.5% thereafter (max £200).
- Mortgages.co.uk - offering £4 cashback for submitting a genuine mortgage enquiry using their online form.
- Alliance & Leicester - earn £20 cashback for opening an eSaver account.
- Interparcel - 5% cashback on all validated bookings.
- DHL - £2.50 for each confirmed booking.
- Amazon.co.uk - 6% cashback.
- National Car Rental - 5% cashback on UK car hire.
- Vodafone Business - earn £70 for every completed online application on the Vodafone Business store
- Marks and Spencer - earn 5% cashback for all non-food purchases (wine is included!).
- Goldsmiths - earn 12% cashback on all jewellery purchases
- shoes.co.uk - earn 7% cashback on all purchases.
- Laterooms.com - earn 7.5% cashback on all hotel bookings.
- Virgin Holidays - earn 3% cashback on every booking.
- Halifax Home Insurance - earn £55 when you take out a policy.
- Kwik-Fit Insurance - earn £42.50 when you take out a car insurance policy.
- Go Travel Insurance - earn 15% cashback on the cost of any travel insurance policy.
- Insurance2go - earn £6 when you take out a mobile phone or Ipod insurance policy.
- Halfords - earn 4% cashback with any purchase (car audio, bikes etc).
- Red Letter Days - earn 13% cashback on any experiences you purchase.
- eBay - Earn 40% (of ebay’s commission - not the price you pay) cashback when you win an auction.
- Gumtree - place a free classified ad and receive 10p cashback, paid ads give £3 cashback (1 per day).
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