Article Surfing Archive

What is Cashback shopping? Basically it is as it says – you buy something, whether it be a product or a service, and you get cashback rewards every time you do so. Brilliant you might say, but how does this work in practise? Well if you were on the High Street you might visit Marks & Spencer, Boots, Tesco or Sainsbury’s. These well known high street retailers all operate rewards points systems whereby you shop and you get a percentage of your total spend back in rewards points. Marks & Spencer operate ‘&More’ Points, Boots will give you ‘Advantage’ Points, Tesco will give you ‘ClubCard’ points and Sainsbury’s form part of the wider ‘Nectar’ points scheme. These points are built up until you have enough to ‘cash them in’ against the value of other goods and services offered by these companies.

Very Good you might say, you are after all getting something back for buying things you would do anyway, regardless of any incentive. Of course there may be times when you give in to impulse shopping lured by the reward of extra ‘points’, but on the whole they are a system designed to recruit your loyalty for purchases you need to make with at least some regularity.

Ok, that’s the High Street, but how does Cashback shopping work online, when you are visiting sites on the Internet and you make purchases via them? This is where things can get even more lucrative for you, the consumer. Take a site like www.bakanda.com, they will offer you cashback every time you shop using their links – not points but cold hard cash! They can do this because their overheads are lower. You still get the item you want from the online shop or service provider that you like, but they encourage you to use their link to get there. As a reward, they give you cashback, based either as a percentage of their total spend or as a flat rate per transaction. As mentioned earlier though it is more lucrative for the consumer because as well as getting cashback from Bakanda, they can also earn their reward points from the store too. For example, if you use Bakanda to shop at Boots and you sign up to their ‘Advantage’ Points system, you will get the points you are entitled to for your shop exactly the same as if you had walked into the store. However, you will also get a percentage of your purchase back in cash from Bakanda! Result = Win, Win for you!

Cashback shopping in the UK is relatively new, but it is growing. In fact UK e-commerce as a whole grew 44% in 2003, and a further 46% in 2004. However in The United States it is estimated that consumers will spend $84.5 billion online in 2005 for retail goods and services, and that number will grow to $139 billion by 2008. This expected growth would significantly outpace total retail spending during the next few years. Amongst all of this, there is a lot of cashback waiting there for you, the consumer, to claim.

Why else would you shop online, other than just for cashback? Well, the top reasons for shopping online include avoiding crowded stores, the availability of lower prices and wide selection of goods and services. So, basically put you can sit at home and not get stressed by the crowds, still buy what you want but get it cheaper and choose from a wider selection, AND if you use the right site like Bakanda, get cashback too!