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.
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--Bridget O'Sullivan
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