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11 Ways to Get the Best Online Deals and Discounts

/Updated /19 Comments/in /by Mary Hunt

Just about everyone who shops online knows to look for online deals—a discount, promotional code, or coupon of some kind–before hitting checkout. According to Statista, in 2020 142.3 million U.S. adults redeemed online coupons, a number that’s projected to grow to 145.3 million users in 2021. But digital coupons are only one of 11 ways to get the biggest discounts and best deals this holiday season.

woman-computer-laptop-shopping

Make the Best Online Deals

Coupon codes

Making it a personal commitment that you won’t buy anything online without a coupon code is something you’ll be able to carry out, almost flawlessly. Coupons and codes are out there if you know where to look.

A simple online search is one way. Another is to visit sites like RetailMeNot and Coupons.com. Totally stumped? Contact customer service or the online chat feature and kindly ask for a code. A simple “Is there anything you can do for me?” has been known to work very well!

Shop online with cash

No, that’s not a typo, but it is your biggest safety net against diving into debt. You might assume there is no way to pay for online purchases with cash. That’s because you don’t know this trick:

Use the cash you have to spend to purchase gift cards for your favorite online sites like Target, Walmart, and Amazon. Stores like Walgreens and just about every major supermarket have racks and racks of gift cards that you can purchase in denominations that fit your budget and can be used to make online and in-store purchases. See how easy that is to stick to your spending plan?

  • MORE: How to Shop with CASH at Amazon

Discounted gift cards

If you know you’ll be shopping at a specific store, instead of paying full price for that store’s gift card, go to a site like Raise.com that resells gift cards at a discounted rate—gift cards others have received but want to sell to get the cash instead. You can find gift cards for just about any store, available to use almost immediately. (I was suspicious at first, but I’ve confirmed that this is legitimate, legal, and completely above board.) You can rest easy because Raise offers this one-year guarantee on all purchases made on its website. Guaranteed online deals.

Another place to buy gift cards at a big discount is Costco.

Get cashback

Rakuten is a rebate site and because I’ve have signed up, I can click on any of the store links on the Rakuten site (there are hundreds including favorites like Old Navy, Chico’s,  JCPenney, Lowes, Groupon and on and on!), make a purchase and get cashback—2% to 10% of the total sale is typical. Rebates are small, but over time they all add up. Every three months I get a rebate check in the mail for cold hard cash, provided I’ve earned at least $5 in rebates. It’s an awesome way to build a cash stash.

Ibotta is another cash back app you may want to consider, one that many of my readers use and highly recommend.

Get help

There is a shopping app that acts more like your personal assistant. Install the Honey app and you’re good to go. Honey will search for you to find the best coupons and discounts available for the website where you are shopping. It’s really quite remarkable just how smart Honey is, and easy to use, too.

 

Pro Tip

Whenever shopping online make sure you are on a secure site. Here’s how to tell? Look at the URL—the web address, at the top of your screen. Does it start with “https?” If so, you and your personal information are secure (s=secure). If you see only “http” you’d be best advised to leave. Quickly.

Price matching

It’s still a thing, and something super savvy shoppers use all the time to get the best deal. Here’s how it works generally: A retailer like Kohl’s or Target guarantees to match the advertised price of a competitor. But you need proof—like the store’s weekly flyer or online ad. But that’s not hard when you have a smartphone with you. Just show the proof at checkout and they should be able to match that lower price.

Use a robot

Can’t be bothered with taking all that time to figure out price matching? Or get all bummed out when the price of something you bought drops like crazy a week later? I get it. That’s why I’m going to recommend you consider a robot app to do that for you. This is tricky, but hear me out.

Earny gets you those refunds on the difference—automatically. Once installed Earny goes through receipts in your email, tracking your online purchases. If the price drops or a competitor offers it for less, Earny takes care of filing the paperwork for you.

 

Pro Tip

You’ll feel a lot more comfortable with Earny if you have a designated email address you use only for online purchases.

Walk away

Oh, I love this tactic. I’m one to put things in my shopping cart and then get distracted and leave. But sometimes it is totally intentional! I’ve discovered things left in an online shopping cart get a lot of attention.

First, I get a reminder. Of course, I don’t react or respond because I did that intentionally. I’m waiting for something better.

You can’t believe how many times, I’ve received a follow-up email days later, offering me a coupon code to entice me to finish up and check out. Of course, by then I’ve had time to think about it which means I’m well fortified to walk away for good—or snap up another discount.

Store pick up

Some retailers have still not caught on that we want free shipping all the time on any purchase! How irritating to see that shipping is going to boost the final cost of that item way beyond reasonable. But before you give up altogether, check to see if the online store offers free shipping but to their local retail store where you can pick it up. Great idea! You’ll skip the long lines, the out-of-stock signs and possibly get a preferred parking place.

 

Pro Tip

Whenever shopping online make sure you are on a secure site. Here’s how to tell: Look at the URL—the web address, at the top of your screen. Does it start with “https?” If so, you and your personal information are secure (s=secure). If you see only “http” you’d be best advised to leave. Quickly.

Clear the deck

There is a term out there, dynamic pricing. It means exactly what you’ve been suspecting all along—the prices and terms you see on your screen are influenced by where you live, your previous shopping habits, and so forth. This is especially true for booking air flights.

What can you do about that? Clear the deck! By that, I mean before you shop online, clear your browsing history and cookies. Log out of all social media sites, too. Now you’ll start out with a clean canvas, which makes super deals and discounts more likely because you appear to be a brand new shopper.

Free shipping

Who wants to wrangle a great discount, then give it all up to pay for shipping? I don’t see a single hand. And I totally agree. While free shipping is becoming more common, don’t assume you’ll get that automatically. You may have to work at it.

 

 

 

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19 replies
  2. Kathy says:

    I love using Paribus. They work like Earny in that they track your purchases and if an item you bought drops in price at the place you bought it, they send you a link to request the difference back. They also track your Amazon orders and if they are delivered later than promised, they send you a script to copy/paste in conversation with Amazon customer support which will give you a $5 credit for their delivery promise guarantee. 🙂

    Reply
  3. Jolyne Dunn says:

    Kohl’s is losing a good part of my business because of their shipping charge. I cannot sit in the parking lot and order because I do not have a smart phone. I try to order and pick up in the store, but my store apparently does not carry a wide selection. In my last two orders (which I did not complete) my store did not have any of the items in stock so I could not pick up in store. Now discount codes are personalized and cannot be shared. Discount on toys have been taken away. What will be next?

    Reply
  4. Emmy says:

    As a small ecommerce seller, I’d like to give a different point of view about free shipping. Shipping is NOT free, no matter how it appears. A retailer must build the cost of shipping into the price of an item if they offer ‘free’ shipping. I prefer not to do that, but charge shipping in an open and honest way so my customers can see what they’re paying for an item, and what the cost of shipping is. (and I do not price my shipping to make a profit.)

    The 2 sides of this: my customers can either pay (for example) $10 per item plus $4 for shipping for their entire order – OR – if I build the cost of shipping into each item, they’d pay $14 per item! For 1 item, there’s obviously no difference. But if they buy multiple items from me, that ‘free shipping’ really adds up.

    So pay $42 for 3 items (3 x $14) if shipping is built into the cost per item, or $34 if there is a shipping charge per order (3 x $10, plus $4 shipping per order). Which would you really prefer?

    Please don’t forget there are many, many of us small sellers out there – not only with our own websites, but also selling on eBay, Amazon, Etsy, etc. It is not easy for us getting questioned about shipping charges because Amazon, and newsletters such as this, set an expectation that people should get free shipping.

    Reply
  5. Kathy says:

    I also used to use Earny until they starting charging $20 a year!!! My savings didn’t add up to it. Paribus is still FREE and does the same thing. Look at my previous reply here.

    Reply
  6. Lisa H says:

    The school where I am employed raises money through Benefit Mobile. I can purchase gift cards on their phone app from lots of different places, online and mortar & brick, and when I do, my school gets a percentage of that gift card. It’s wonderful in the situation of purchasing them for cash discounts.

    Reply
  7. Kathy says:

    I also use Paribus. they track prices and if a lower price is found where you bought an item, it notifies you and gives you a script to use in chat or email to get the price difference. It also works with Amazon when an order arrives late then it should have. You contact Amazon and the $5 per their shipping guarantee. 🙂

    Reply
  9. Chrissy Goff says:

    I follow Hip2Save and KrogerKrazy to get the best deals. I love getting free food at Kroger for sure. Got free pull ups last month after coupons, cash back at register, catalina’s and ibotta. I donated them to a food bank as I didn’t need them but if it is free I will buy it and donate it if we or the neighbors can’t use it.

    Reply
  10. Carrie Morris says:

    Money-saving is one of the biggest challenges we encounter these days. When it comes to purchasing online you have to be particular and careful not to be fooled and end up giving away all the information. You have composed this blog concisely, giving each awareness and validates how to get discount vouchers. I loved your blog. hoping to see such blogs in the future.

    Reply
  12. Sue in TX says:

    I may be the odd (wo)man out here, but I refuse to use the rebate sites like Rakuten. I don’t want another cyberspace entity collecting info on my every purchase (or even on what I looked at without buying!) and having all that info about me available under conditions I cannot control. I also turn off cookies for almost all Web sites and block pop-up ads whenever I can. Because of all the tracking by unknown parties, I would forego online shopping completely, but I live half the year in a remote place where even Amazon Prime 2-day shipping takes at least 3-4 days!

    Reply
  13. Honeywest says:

    Also remember that podcasts have a button to speed up the talk to 1 1/2 or 2 times regular speech. I often do that to make my listening time shorter. I also enjoy hearing the voices sound like the chipmunks. 🙂

    Reply
  14. Patricia A Weiser says:

    Hi Mary,
    I use many of your tips and tricks, and appreciate all the research you have done. I know many people enjoy podcasts, but I don’t have the time or the inclination to sit and listen. Is there someway you can provide transcripts so we could just read your message?

    Reply

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