Online coupon sites are making a comeback

As more and more shoppers are paying careful attention to their budgets this holiday season, retailers are noticing a big increase in the popularity of online coupon sites and codes.

The recent rise in interest undoubtedly has to do with the economic downturn th ecountry is facing, but online coupon sites have also dramatically increased the accessibility of the codes.

Sites such as BetterDealsDaily.com, CouponCode.com, CouponMom.com, and CouponCabin.com are informational sites that gather and publish codes that shoppers can use when they make purchases online. Some codes have become so popular, in fact, that retailers limit the amount of times that they can be redeemed.

"Coupons had never been a big factor online the way they are offline. This is something new," Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore, tells the New York Times. "It's taken pricing power away from the retailers and given it to the consumers, because the consumer is totally up to speed on what the prices are."

The popularity of online coupon code sites is creating a whole new kind of value generation, and not just for the shopper. Some sites earn commissions from retailers when shoppers click through their sites to make purchases. On other sites such as ebates.com, the shopper himself earns a reward for making a purchase from a retailer connected to the site.

Another factor that may contribute to the popularity of onlinecoupons is how discreet shoppers can be. Instead of holding up a long line of people and making their coupon use public, online shoppers can enter coupon codes publicly identifying themselves as coupon shoppers. With the ever-increasing popularity of online shopping, the popularity of online coupon codes is expected to rise significantly.

Click here for the complete article.

--Bridget O'Sullivan

Online Coupon Sites Make The Cut

As inflation of the dollar threatens to hit 25 year highs, shoppers are scrambling to find savings on basic items such as food and clothing. Corporations also want to keep customers from straying toward cheaper, generic or “store brand” products.

The solution? More coupons, especially in the form of online printable coupons.

Some Web sites such as Couponcabin.com and Retailmenot.com have long been devoted to providing customers with discount codes that they can present when checking out at an online retail outlet.

Other sites, such as Eversave.com and CouponMom.com provide shoppers with more traditional coupons that they can print and bring to the grocery store. This type of site in particular has been gaining popularity as more and more households need to stretch their budgets.

Steven Boal, an executive at the parent company of Coupons.com said to The Chicago Tribune : “We're seeing a higher return rate, of people coming back more frequently than ever before.”

The Tribune also reports that online coupon sites had nearly 25 million unique views in May alone, and this suggests that more and more shoppers are making visits to these sites part of their shopping routine.

Despite the popularity of online coupon sites, clipping coupons out the Sunday circulars is in no danger of becoming obsolete. Though many of the sites have significant traffic, printable coupons are estimated to make up only about 5 percent of the number of coupons used in stores of the course of the next year.

--Bridget O'Sullivan