Expert: asqit - 7/6/2002

Question
Hi, this may be a difficult question to answer well but do you know what sites exist that track special deal/savings on online merchants? Like in the brick-and-mortar stores sometimes they have $1 days, or HUGE savings for a few hours on a certain day or when they are closing up shop.

Does this exist in the online world as well? Any sites that track these very critical huge savings times?

Much thanks,
chris :o)


Answer
Hi, Chris,
There are tens of so-called coupon websites that track discount coupons, sales and rebates. Check out the http://dmoz.org/Home/Homemaking/Frugality/Coupons/ to have a look on what has been selected as the best by human experts. Most coupon websites are affiliated with online merchants and are paid by merchants per sale (pay-for-performance) or are paid by merchants for impressions or clicks (pay-per-click). In any case they are obliged to follow merchant's promotion policy. It means they show discount coupons and sales merchants have issued for them especially. There are other special promotions merchants offer to their newsletter subscribers only. There are special promotions merchants offer to online visitors only.

Online merchants operate 24x7 and worldwide. They don't offer few hours huge savings or closing up savings (for 4 years of my extensive shopping experience I have not seen such a case). From time to time they offer one day special saving (Friday sales, for example). Are there really huge savings? Yes they are. I personally bought many items 50-60% cheaper than regular price and 10-15% cheaper than on auctions. The scheme is as follows: you find merchants that have the item you are looking for on their shelves (with the help of google or bizrate), and then find discount coupons for that merchants.

Where to find discount coupons depends on your goals. I prefer www.asqit.com due to their policy to offer only big dollar deals. Women like www.flamingoworld.com . People who are looking for specific items may use www.mycoupons.com .

The common disadvantage of near the all coupon websites is their inability to point the exact merchant for the keywords you are looking for (though some of them, ex. asqit.com uses keywords to describe deals). It means that coupon websites are good to answer if the specific merchant has discount coupon for the moment, and they are not so good to answer where to find the item with the best price.

Regards,
Sergejs