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Popular coupon sites - April 2008

Published May 16th, 2008 in Popular Sites Series. 0 Comments

This is April 2008 revision of the Popular Coupon sites list. You can find the last month revision of the list here.

The change in rating shows the difference compared to March results. Only the websites with Alexa Rank < 100,000 are listed. This is the second month of data since Alexa reworked the ranking and so we can finally compare apples to apples.

The best result is from deallocker.com who shot up 30.52% thanks to the recent publicity. And by the way, check out this DealLocker discussion on affiliate forums. It touches some of the same copyright issues raised back when RetailMeNot was featured on this blog.

# Web Site Alexa Rank Page Rank Online Since
1 coolsavings.com 2935 (-5.8%) 6 03-Jun-1996
2 retailmenot.com (info) 3426 (5.04%) 6 27-Oct-2006
3 (1) eversave.com 5000 (4.45%) 6 08-Apr-1999
4 (1) coupons.com 5065 (-8.71%) 6 (1) 07-Sep-1994
5 couponmountain.com 7440 (-4.29%) 6 05-May-2001
6 couponcabin.com 10548 (-1.33%) 5 27-Feb-2003
7 coupons.smartsource.com 23682 (7.71%) 6 (1) 27-Apr-1995
8 fabuloussavings.com 28557 (-0.43%) 4 27-Jan-1999
9 (2) mycoupons.com 31786 (9.49%) 5 16-Feb-1999
10 flamingoworld.com 32587 (-0.47%) 6 19-May-1999
11 (2) ultimatecoupons.com 32680 (-3.34%) 4 02-Jul-2001
12 hotcouponworld.com 33898 (12.42%) 4 15-Jun-2006
13 (3) deallocker.com 40011 (30.52%) 5 (1) 24-Mar-2007
14 (1) couponchief.com 46802 (-18.29%) 5 15-Jan-2005
15 couponwinner.com 50149 (3.7%) 5 30-Jan-2006
16 (2) wow-coupons.com 52145 (-4.24%) 3 (-2) 26-Nov-2003
17 (3) savings.com 61737 (18.55%) 4 20-Apr-1995
18 (1) couponmom.com 62890 (7.38%) 5 (1) 25-Jun-2002
19 (1) valpak.com 65702 (0.79%) 6 (1) 22-Jun-1994
20 (3) currentcodes.com 75055 (-15.56%) 5 27-Dec-2000
21 (2) thegrocerygame.com 83733 (11.6%) 5 28-Aug-2001
22 (2) couponshare.com 90168 (8.7%) 3 (1) 21-Jan-2002
23 (2) gogoshopper.com 94200 (-7.48%) 4 16-Dec-1999
24 (2) couponheaven.com 94495 (-2.36%) 4 28-Sep-2003

Over $500 in credit card sign up bonuses

Published May 15th, 2008 in Shopping Promotion. 3 Comments

Credit card sign up bonus offers are the kind of deals I rarely pass on. They are usually easy to get on, and just as easy to get off when you no longer need the card. I have participated in most of the promotions below and still use one of these credit cards because of its good daily cash rewards.

All of the cards below have no annual fee, or have it waived for the first year. Should you apply just because of the sign up bonus? You will have to decide it for yourself. My answer to this question tends to vary depending on the bonus amount and on how badly I am in a need of cash at the time I see the offer.

Credit cards with sign up bonuses

citi professional credit card Citi Professional (offer page)

10,000 ThankYou points ($100 equivalent) after $250 in purchases. The card also offers decent rewards when you use it at restaurants, gas stations, on auto rentals and certain office supply merchants.

citi business credit card Citi Business (offer page)

10,000 ThankYou points ($100 equivalent) after $250 in purchases. The card also offers decent rewards when you use it at office supply merchants and on professional services

amex rewards gold card American Express Preferred Rewards Gold (offer page)

10,000 membership rewards bonus points after your first purchase (redeemable for a $100 gift card). The membership program tied with this card also offers certain travel and entertainment related perks.

discover business card Discover Business (offer page)

$100 cashback bonus after $1000 in purchases. This card also offers 5% on your first $2000 in office supply purchases and 2% on your first $2000 in gas purchases in a year, plus other benefits

amex business freedom card American Express Platinum Business FreedomPass (offer page)

5000 bonus points with first purchase (redeem for $100 when you accumulate a total 7500 points). This card offers one point for each dollar spent on travel. 7500 points are redeemable for $100 (effective cashback rate 1.33%).

chase freedom card Chase Freedom (offer page)

$50 in bonus rebates after your first purchase. 3% cashback in 3 top categories by spending (capped at $18 per month) and 1% in the rest. Also check out Chase Freedom Plus card, my primary credit card at the moment

amex one card American Express One (offer page)

$50 bonus is deposited into a linked savings account after first purchase. This card also offers 1% cashback on eligible purchases - this is a norm for most cash rewards credit cards. The distinct part is the FDIC-insured savings account that comes with the card.

My little social bargain hunting experiment

Published May 13th, 2008 in Business Social. 3 Comments

Do you remember Modoshi? It is a deal site that launched in November 2006 and implemented a few interesting concepts that turned bargain hunting into a fun contest. The project eventually shut down but it really got me thinking.

  • Can a deal site be turned into a fun game where participants get rewarded for the bargains they recommend?
  • Can the site modeled around this concept be a successful and profitable business?

Ever since Modoshi shut down in summer 2007 I have been sitting on this idea. But I wasn’t just sitting, I was actually doing something. Read on to find what kept me sleepless over the past several months.

What makes people share deals?

Why people come to deal forums to post the shopping deals they find? For the most part it is because of the community. Initially they come to get information, feel thankful for the support they find and eventually come again to give back to the community that helped them. You could say that the community feeds itself.

Sometimes the site owners make an effort to help the community grow. SlickDeals encourages participation via reputation points the deal submitters receive from the peers. With DealsPlus each deal submission brings you closer to the next level - another star by your avatar. All these small attributes help the participants build their place in the community, help them feel useful and rewarded.

What did Modoshi do differently?

Why did I like Modoshi when there is already a number of striving bargain hunting communities out there? Because the team made an effort to improve on what some of these communities are doing. They have attempted to give the members a monetary incentive to participate and contribute. The incentives were offered in a form of daily and monthly contests that rewarded quality submissions and intelligent deal picks/votes which in turn brought a crowd of regulars to the site.

modoshi contest

In addition Modoshi offered a huge number of tweaks for efficient bargain hunting on the site itself. The amount of product data they displayed made me think I am looking at a control panel of an airplane. It probably was a bit overboard but it appealed my geeky taste and built an invisible bond with the site creators.

I liked the idea so much that I decided to recreate it in a slightly modified form on Buxr, the project I started with my partner last year. Here are the basics (and I encourage you to comment on these!).

The daily contest

  • Users submit deals. Every day one deal is selected “the best of the day” based on user votes and our own judgment. The user who submits this deal is rewarded a daily prize (currently $10 via PayPal).

The monthly contest

There are two ways to participate, via deal submission and via deal votes.

  • Users submit deals. We select the best and the worst deal of the day on a daily basis. The user who submits the best deal gains 5 points, the user who submits the worst deal loses 5 points.
  • Users vote deals up/down. At the end of the day we compare user votes with our deal picks. If a user votes up the best deal of the day, or votes down the worst deal of the day, they earn 1 point. If a user votes down the best deal of the day, or votes up the worst deal of the day, they lose 1 point.

The user who collects the most points at the end of the month earns the monthly prize (currently Apple iPhone).

buxr monthly contest

We plan to tweak these rules going forward as we learn from the participants, but the goal will stay the same, to build an exciting environment for people to come and share shopping deals, given whatever limited resources we have at hand.

Modoshi failed. Why am I doing this?

I strongly suspect a part of the reason why Modoshi closed was the lack of experience from the team (or the individual) who was running the site. Both my partner and I have been in this niche for a while and have come here to stay. Buxr doesn’t bring any significant revenue right now, not even enough to compensate for the prizes we offer. Yet we believe that the community around a deal site is the single most important side of a successful shopping affiliate business. It brings life, triggers conversations, helps with viral marketing.

Personally for me, it also gives a meaning to my life. I have always said that comments on this blog make me wake up in the morning and write more. Buxr is my new (more bargains focused) way to talk to you guys. The good part is that now you can initiate conversations as well! :-)

Popular price comparison sites - April 2008

Published May 12th, 2008 in Popular Sites Series. 1 Comment

This is April 2008 revision of the Popular Price Comparison web sites list. You can find the last month revision of the list here.

Just like I did with deal sites, I had to tighten the requirement down to 50,000 to keep the list manageable after Alexa reworked their measuring algorithm.

These changes in rank below are for the most part meaningless because what they reflect is who of these price comparison sites benefited more from the algorithm changes. The next month list will be more fun to watch.

# Web Site Alexa Rank Page Rank Online Since
1 shopping.yahoo.com 1 (*) 8 18-Jan-1995
2 froogle.google.com 2 (*) 8 11-Sep-2001
3 shopping.msn.com 5 (*) 8 (1) 10-Nov-1994
4 shopping.aol.com 21 (*) 8 (1) 22-Jun-1995
5 shopper.cnet.com (info) 137 (*) 7 05-Jul-1996
6 shopping.com 347 (31.96%) 7 03-Jul-1997
7 dealtime.com 467 (21.91%) 7 07-Oct-1998
8 nextag.com 532 (40.69%) 7 (1) 15-Oct-1998
9 bizrate.com 618 (42.51%) 7 24-Apr-1996
10 (1) shoplocal.com 838 (47.66%) 8 24-Sep-1998
11 (1) pricegrabber.com (info) 839 (44.98%) 8 10-Mar-1999
12 shopzilla.com 1128 (52.02%) 7 04-Jul-2002
13 (2) epinions.com 1622 (53.95%) 7 12-Feb-1999
14 (1) pronto.com 1799 (41.25%) 7 (1) 01-Jan-2006
15 (1) smarter.com 1808 (48.49%) 6 28-Apr-1998
16 (1) become.com 2772 (47.29%) 6 20-Jan-2004
17 (1) calibex.com 4094 (9.18%) 4 02-Oct-2000
18 pricerunner.com 4972 (41.53%) 7 (1) 19-May-1999
19 mysimon.com 5750 (41.85%) 8 (1) 15-Apr-1998
20 thefind.com (info) 7310 (29.21%) 6 19-Oct-2006
21 (2) like.com 10017 (56.31%) 5 22-Feb-1995
22 retrevo.com 11210 (46.79%) 6 (1) 10-May-2006
23 (2) pricewatch.com 11315 (42.38%) 6 26-Sep-1995
24 ebates.com 11677 (50.94%) 6 29-Dec-1998
25 sortprice.com 19416 (42.07%) 6 (1) 15-Jan-2004
26 (5) dealighted.com (info) 22049 (59.97%) 6 09-Oct-2006
27 (1) bestwebbuys.com 24681 (27.49%) 7 06-Jan-1998
28 (1) shopwiki.com 27553 (37.87%) 5 15-Dec-2004
29 (2) jellyfish.com 29942 (25.44%) 5 26-Jun-2006
30 pricescan.com 35620 (34.12%) 6 03-Sep-1997
31 (3) mpire.com 35744 (11.27%) 6 01-Jun-2006

(*) Note: traffic stats for these sites is an aggregate of all traffic to the top domain (e.g. Yahoo.com or Google.com) and thus cannot be used to judge how popular this particular price comparison service is.

Savng on gas with electric commuter bike

Published May 10th, 2008 in Money Saving Tips. 3 Comments

Cheap Electric BikeI have long speculated the idea of riding a bicycle to work. Not only it saves money, it is also an excellent way to force yourself to exercise in the morning. I can’t stand the boredom of a treadmill and morning ride to work looks like an appealing alternative.

Some of my friends do use bikes but I have not done so for several reasons. One of them is the distance. My office is around 14 miles from my house which is a little too far for a bike ride. At some point I considered driving half way, dropping the car, and then riding the second half, but that never worked out. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving my car on a shopping parking lot, and there was no other alternatives.

I recently stumbled upon this inexpensive hybrid electric bike which seem to address some of my concerns. It looks like a regular bike but has a 450Watt rear rack mounted electric motor powered by a rechargeable battery which gives it a boost as you ride. The battery can be detached so you can charge it in the office, or you can get a spare one to swap batteries between home and work.

The guys at TreeHugger have recently reviewed this model and the only significant complain was the weight of the lead-acid battery (yeah, it is an entry level bike) and the fact that it will only last a year (this fact was mentioned in the manual).

If you use this bike for a commute that is 20 miles or less, you could definitely arrive at the office without breaking a sweat. I was pleased by the power of the motor. It was easy to achieve speeds of 25 mph while pedaling lightly.

I hope at this speed I can get to work in about half an hour and still not need a shower to recover from the ride. What do you think, should I get it? Also, if you have a “sit whole day at the desk” kind of work like myself, tell me how you manage to balance it with exercise and stay fit?

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