Ostania aktualizacja postu : 9 October 2024
Promotional coupons and everything we need to know before reaching for them – saving is one of the natural human instincts. Each of us looks for savings wherever we can – at home (among other things, by turning off electrical devices when we do not use them), but also outside it. One of the most interesting forms of saving is reaching for online promotional coupons, allowing you to save on shopping. However, is this always the case and is reaching for them tantamount to saving? Welcome to our comprehensive guide.
Basic types of online promotional coupons
Discount codes come in several different forms. The most common are coupons that grant us a percentage discount on all purchases made, often limiting it to a selected type of product. Coupons giving real cash (for example – PLN 20 from the entire receipt) are much rarer, but usually they force us to spend a certain amount before obtaining the opportunity to use them. So, to get a PLN 20 discount, we will have to spend over PLN 200 – if we did not plan it, we would rather not save on it. Popular coupons are also those that give you a “second/third/fourth product for half the price”. The easiest way to get them is in grocery chains, less often in clothing stores.
What to look for when getting promotional coupons online
Promo codes can be tricky – for two reasons. First of all, they can be a clever marketing trap, through which – often quite unconsciously – we will buy more and … spend more than we planned, just to “save” more. Secondly, they can be a way for scammers to rob us of our savings. We must therefore be doubly careful with them, paying attention to:
- source of obtaining them – it is important that online promotional coupons come from the most trusted source. Remember that each of them must be issued on the initiative of the company in which they can be used (they are a form of indirect marketing for it). Most often, we will receive them by e-mail after shopping, or after subscribing to the newsletter of a given company. Coupons of this type are also often shared on forums and newsgroups. However, if these are untrusted, and the e-mail containing them comes from a dubious source – we must be careful because we may be targeted by a scammer. More on this topic is described in the section relating to the requirements imposed on us by promotional coupons.
- their real value – coupons very often offer a dubious opportunity to save, giving a discount on products whose price (usually for the duration of the coupon) is increased. In order to use online promotional coupons consciously, we need to know what the standard prices of the products are. It is also worth simply comparing them – as we use promotional coupons of this type via the Internet, we also have easy access to competitor websites or popular price comparison websites. Let’s reach for them, necessarily before we take advantage of the promotion.
- requirements they pose – coupons do not give us anything for free – we must be fully aware of this. They usually require us to make larger purchases, only then entering into force. There is also another side of requirements – when giving an online promotional coupon, its issuer often requires us to provide an e-mail address in order to send it to him, and at the same time send us marketing messages. Something for something – you know. However, let’s make sure that we provide only our e-mail address – scammers often try to extract additional data from us, and the more brazen ones force us to log in via the bank’s website. So if we have to provide too much information or do anything related to online banking, just don’t do it – this coupon is probably from a scammer. Not enough,
- expiry date – it often happens that the companies issuing the coupon (i.e. those where it can be redeemed) specifically make it possible to use it only on a given day or for a very short period. All because we usually first look at what an online promotional coupon gives us, then we choose products and only at the end, when making a purchase, we want to use it. This makes a lot of sense from a marketing point of view – if the coupon turns out to be used, we may feel sorry for “not getting the products we have already chosen”. Therefore, we often buy them at normal prices.
Summary
Online promotional coupons can contribute to large savings on products that we would buy much more expensive without them. They can, but they don’t have to – it all depends on how carefully we approach what they actually give us. It is also important not to fall into the marketing trap, i.e. not to buy products that we do not really need (or too much of them for our needs) just because “it is cheaper”. So let’s use coupons, but let’s do it wisely, really using their value in relation to our needs.
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