When purchasing things online, I always use cash-back shopping if it’s possible. If I’m going to purchase something anyways, why not earn some money back? Another cool thing about cash-back shopping is that most times there will also be coupon codes you can use.
So I save money and get money back—fun stuff. Even times when I know I can just run to the store and buy whatever, I’ll check into the benefits of cash-back shopping—most places have free shipping offers.
Here’s an example for buying some books:
Cash-back offers for Barnes & Noble
Big Crumbs will give me 4.8% back
Ebates will give me 4% back
Shop at Home will give me 6% back
Cash-back offers for Borders
Big Crumbs will give me 4.8% back
Ebates will give me 4% back
Shop at Home will give me 6% back
* In addition to cash-back each site also offers coupons I can choose from for each retailer above to further my savings.
Next all I have to do is see which online bookstore will give me the books I want at the lowest price and then decide which cash-back shopping site to purchase through. Each offer different amounts of cash-back, but each has their own payment schedule.
My personal favorite is Big Crumbs because they send me payments monthly via PayPal. Not much waiting time—great for people who are impatient like me. Shop at Home doesn’t send out payments until your account reaches 20 bucks. Ebates sends out payments quarterly I believe.
On top of the comparison shopping between the online bookstores, earning cash-back on my purchases and the use of coupon codes through the cash-back shopping sites; I can further my savings by using my credit card with rewards. Also, if I purchase at Borders I can use my Border’s Reward card and earn credit towards Border’s Bucks.
* The cash-back percentages above are from 6/22/11 when I did the research for this post. These might not be the current amounts when you read this, but are used for examples.
Anybody else always use cash-back shopping?