Online Shopping Savings Steps

 

Online Shopping Savings Steps

Join us in our mission of getting the most for your dollar. We so love to save money and have found the Internet is a fabulous tool for saving money compared to shopping at a brick and mortar store.  In fact, 90% of the Christmas shopping we do is done online and the same holds true throughout the year.

By doing a little research before clicking on the “pay” icon can put money back into your pocket.  Let us show you how you can do this too.

Here are the steps we follow:

1.  First, search for the items you are looking to purchase to find the best deal on the Web.  We add the items on that website to our cart. *Note: if you have your Internet Settings set so your browser clears all your information when opening up a new browser or tab session, you may need to put the items back in your cart again once you get to step 6 (see tip in #5 to save you time).

2.  Next, check each of the sites listed on the Internet Shopper Click-thru page (page will open in a new tab so that you have both pages handy) of this site for the store you are looking to make the purchase (right click and click on “open a new window” so I can compare the sites easily instead of having to write down which site offers what as cash back).  You are looking to see if the store you want to purchase at is one of their listed stores.  In checking each of the sites, you are ultimately looking for which site will give me the most return on your dollar spent. Once you’ve figure out which site that is,  make sure you are logged in on that site.

3.  Next search google.com for coupon and promotional codes for that store (also check the cash back site you’re shopping thru).  You can use any other search engine of your preference, however; we get the best results from Google’s search engine.  Example: If we wanted to buy at Sears.com we type in: sears coupon and promotional codes – in the search box.

4.  Click on several of the links of the results from the search to see what they have listed for current coupons or promotional codes.  One of our most favorite sites for these codes is retailmenot.com, as they show the coupon code.  ***do note – some cash backs sites do NOT let you use a coupon code from another site – so be sure to read the fine detail on the cash back site that you’re shopping through regarding their code policy.

*Note:  Any link you click on that takes you directly to the store in order to utilize the coupon is not the coupon you want to use.  If you decide to do so, you will not be able to click thru the click-thru site you have chosen that earns you rewards, points or cash rebates.

5. Once you find the best coupon/promo code either write it down or open a new browser session.   Then go to the Internet Shopping Click-thru site you have chosen for this shopping session.  Click the link on that site which takes you to the store where you want to make the purchase.

***Now, if you are a person who is up and down from the computer, you will want to start a new session w/the click thru site you’ve chosen, as some of these sites…not all…will boot you out of your click thru session if you’ve wandered away too long (we are famous for this, so we learned the hard way when our $ wasn’t pending in our chosen click thru site to restart a new session if we had wandered…no matter what the time frame was of being gone).

TIP:  And, we don’t know about you, but we get all flustered when a website has emptied my cart on us. So…to remedy this….we’ve even gone as far as copying and pasting the cart contents in an email to ourselves if we know we are going to be interrupted for a while.  Some shopping sites, if gone too long, will empty your cart (kohls.com is famous for this…uggg!).

6. Having already put the items in your cart, proceed to checkout where you’ll find the place to enter a promo/coupon code and enter it.  If by chance the coupon is not valid for some reason, we will search for a different coupon/promo code as explained in #3 above.  If the Click-thru site has a time limit on how long their link is good for, we will go back to their site and re-click through their site.  Most of the sites you shop at will save our shopping bag for this duration (read tip in  #5 above).

To give you an example of the process…lets say we are shopping for girl’s clothing and find a few items at oldnavy.com:

We search each site on the Internet Click-thru sites listed…mypoints.com, ebates.com, mrrebates.com, etc. for the Old Navy website on their site to see which site will give us the most back on my purchase.  Let’s say we end up choosing ebates.com.  Next, we search the Internet for coupon and promo codes.  We find one that will give us 30% off my purchase so we write it down.  We then go back to the ebates.com website, click on the oldnavy.com link on their site, which takes us to oldnavy.com.  We then head to checkout and find the place where we are to enter coupon/promo codes. The reflection of the coupon/promo savings should show up in your total once you apply the coupon to your purchase.  We finish checking out and we have saved two times over, sometimes three if the item was already on sale (BTW…we don’t usually buy anything unless it’s on sale)!

Let’s do the math…(this is ONLY an EXAMPLE):

Total price of items added to cart…. $165.00 –

Coupon code of 30% deducted……..$  49.50 = $115.50 – (Some online stores will allow you to use more than one coupon code.  Kohls.com is one of them)

Ebates click-thru of 4%……………….$    4.62 = $ 110.88 total spent on purchase (MUST click thru the cashback site BEFORE checking out)

Clicking thru the ebates website gives us a 4% rebate on our purchase $115.50 x .04% = $4.62 in our ebates.com account.  Most click thru sites let you cash out when you reach $10.00, which really does add up fast if you are an avid online shopper.  However, please check the cash out policy on each site, as they are different.  And some sites will give you a sign on bonus to jump start your savings.

We have now paid $110.88 for $165.00 worth of goods (which potentially may have added up to more if they were on sale to begin with).

Read about our favorite cash back sites

 

  7 Responses to “Online Shopping Savings Steps”

Comments (7)
  1. That is a very good tip particularly to those new to the blogosphere. Simple but very accurate info… Appreciate your sharing this one. A must read post!

  2. Great tips – I’ve used promo codes before but not e-bates – this should add a little more cash to my pocket.

  3. Thank you for the great tips! I’m always looking to save money, especially in this horrible economy! I also use ebates but sometimes I forget. This page I can bookmark for fast access when I do online shopping so I remember how to get the best deal. Thanks again!

  4. This is a very helpful post. I have never heard of a site emptying your cart by default!. That’s new. Well, here, the maximum thing that occurs is a pop up opens saying my transaction will expire soon if not finalized. That’s all. Just a warning. Well getting my cart emptied would definitely be a frustration!

  5. What great tips, thank you very much.

  6. Thanks for this great post full of ideas! I need all the help I can get 🙂

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