We have been working in the ecommerce industry for a very long time. At one point I had over 100,000 photographs of sporting events online alongside hundreds of aerial photographs for sale. I have also run several other online shops some of which have worked and quite a few that haven’t. This has given me a lot of experience in how to sell and buy online. I though it was about time I shared some insider knowledge to help you save money as a customer.
I quite often get asked by friends about things like cashback and what is it? They often think it is too much hassle to use and not worth it. But when you consider how much you really can save it is worth a bit of time setting things up that will save you money forever. So here is my explanation of cashback and how it works. This post might be useful to both store owners and shoppers.
Cash back
It is so obvious and contains the word cash, why isn’t everyone doing it. Well, lets start at the top:
What is Cashback – Cashback is a way of being rewarded by a company every time you spend with them. This can come in several forms, either as what it says on the tin, cash into your bank account or in the form of a pre loaded payment card. You can also get cashback from Credit Cards by spending using their card.
You can either chose to go for the cash and spend it how you want or get cashback on a card that you can only use at specific places thereby keeping you in a certain ecosystem along with the chance you might lose the card and forget to spend it.
How do you get Cashback? – There are a variety of ways to get cashback. Personally I use Topcasback. It is a website with links to hundreds of offers and brands. You sign up and add your bank details and before you purchase something you go via the top cashback website. It will record your visit and remember how much you spent. Once verified and they are sure you haven’t returned the item you can cash out the balance to your bank account or convert it for vouchers to use at other stores.
This is a fairly hassle free and not very risky form of shopping. For the customer it makes sense and for the brand it is worth it, you may ask why, so I will explain.
Why do companies offer cashback?
It may seem strange that a company wants to give you money as a reward for shopping with them. Let me explain a little about the way this works from a marketing perspective.
The internet is a big place and there are hundreds of places to buy hundreds of brands. This is why companies need to find new ways to attract new customers. Let’s start with an insurance company.
Getting car insurance is easy, you can surf the internet and find the cheapest options using sites like money supermarket or which. You can also just do a search on Google and the top results will be adverts.
Do you know how much those adverts cost?
Do you know how much the insurance company has to pay uSwitch or Money supermarket if you buy using the link you click.
There are so many costs involved in getting a new customer that it can be baffling, what you need to know is that it costs around £5 for a single click on an advert on Google for car insurance. and you may not even buy it from there. If we imagine a conversion rate of 5% which isn’t unreasonable then that is £100 per customer. I am getting these figures from the keyword planner tool and our own experience of conversion rate.
This is why cashback makes sense. The company only has to pay the cashback if you convert into a customer. It also means they don’t have to pay for other adverts, they only pay for the cashback sites fees. SO giving you £50 cash is the same as paying for an advert.
Don’t forget the cashback sites all have massive emailing lists and social media so can generate lot so new business for them. Which is why some of them can charge an absolute fortune to brands for using their services.
Should you use Cashback to pomote your brand
Cash back is an excellent option to build your ecommerce business but you need to know the ins and outs. How many other promotions do you have out here. If you are doing AdWords, what happens when someone clicks on your ad and then uses cashback? You get a double hit of costs, the cost of the click plus the cashback.
The same goes for any other form of advertising. As I suggested Cashback has a lot of power because of the size of their audience and if you are lucky customers will only click through from their site. Do not forget that you also have to pay the cashback company money too so double your costs before you start.
There are several ways to get started. You can go through an affiliate network site like Affiliate Windows or contact Topcashback directly. Or you can talk to us at We are Chain Ltd who have used all of these options before and can help point you in the right direction.
It's really simple. Every time you click through and purchase something from one of the 4,000 major retailers featured on TopCashback, the retailer pays us a commission for referring you to their website. We pass 100% of this commission back to you as 'cashback'.
Cash Back Credit Cards
Cash Back Credit Cards can save you money all over the place, but you have to remember it is a credit card and must be paid off on time or you will be out of pocket by a lot. There are lots of options out there and you can find lists on any decent money saving website. These cards can also be used to collect airmiles which are veery useful if you are into your travelling.
