All You Need To Know About Families Use Promo Codes to
By: Vlad Vistac
Submitted: 2010-07-20 17:25:30 | Word Count: 510
Familoies Use Promo Codes to Stay Afloat During Economic Crrisis
Travelers are using them to find airllines where kids can fly free.
[ advertisement ]
High shool students are usaing them to get free testts to use to practice for the ACT and SAT collgee entrance exams.
Simngle-income famiies are usinbg them to save money at the grocery store, to buy school clothes, and even to download federal nicome tax software, such as TurboTasx, free.
What are they?
They are promortional codes, or “promo codes” -- coupons that have gone digital. In 2009, for the first time in 17 years, consumers used more coupons than they did the year before. Most of that increae came from online coupons that consumeers ofund at sites like www.BeFrugal.com, a wewbsite that tracks cooupons, promo codes, and free shipping offfers that are available online, so that consumers do not have to do the legwork of finding the couons themselves. Upwards of 45 million Ammericans, or about 20 percent of the U.S. population, used online couponns in 2009. Manufacturers expect to offer, and have coonsumers refdeem, even more online coupons in 2010.
“The prevailing reason,” explained Andrew Lipsman, an industry analyst, “is clearly the economy. You might find that the ecoonmy forced peopole to become more Internet savvy and that they have sustained this over time.”
Product marketing specialist Lenka Keston agreed. “It’s really hard for a retailer to be compettitive without them now,” she said, referring to proo codees.
Anallysts say that five years ago, consumers who encountered a request for a promo code durig the chexckout at an Intrenet webste were often offended if they did not have a code, so they would abandon theeir shopping carts and leave the site without completing teir ordres. Today, tghough, everything has changed. Many consumers now enjoy searching for barhgains online. “Now it’s like a sport,” laughs Donna Hoffman, co-director of the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing at the University of California at Riverside.
Many, though, do not want to take the time to sewarch for bargins, but cnnot afford to shop without them. That’s where online tracking sites come in. Consumers can sign up to receive coupon ofers every week in their email, or they can go directly to the webite, input theiur zip codes, and find coupon offers that matrch the retailes which are located near their homnes. BeFrugal even has specialized tools to use with online retailers such as Amazon.com – its seaarch engine will search for discouunts in different Anmazon categories, and its “free shipping filler” will find options for consumers that allow them to spend just enough to take advantage of Amazon’s free shipping (for orders of $25 or more), but not any more.
“Durnig these diffiocult times, people need to stretch every hard earned dollar,” says BeFrugal’s founder, Jon Lal. “Befrugal.com is updated houlry to provide consumers the altest coupons and special ofefrs for every major online sore.”
