Quidco’s SureShop Agreement – Do cashback sites add any value?
I got an email last night asking me to accept Quidco’s Sureshop Agreement.
In a nutshell, the agreement is that I will resolve any queries within 30 days of them being raised or they will auto-approve. Now I don’t have an issue with the 30 day timeframe, but it did make me think about whether or not cashback sites in general add any value.
This has no doubt been discussed ad nauseum, but here’s my take on it.
I used to use cashback sites myself – The process went something along the likes of this :-
- Decide to buy something online
- Log in to a couple of cashback sites to see if cashback was available
- If cashback is available – clickthrough & buy
- If cashback was not available – go back to the site & buy.
So, given the above, the sale would have happened anyway – the cashback sites added nothing (& potentially cost the merchant).
Never was I browsing the cashback site & saw that there was cashback available from retailer x & thought to myself – “bugger me I can earn 5% cashback if I buy something from that retailer I’m going to clickthrough & buy something”.
Conversely, I quite often found myself browsing (still do in fact) the likes of hotukdeals & the DVD Forums Bargains & regularly think “bugger me – that’s a great deal – I d0n’t really need it, but at that price, I’m going to buy it anyway”
It seems clear from the above, that the cashback sites are adding nothing & the bargain forums are adding plenty.
All that being said though, I have seen (& made) the argument that cashback might be just enough to sway a buyer who couldn’t quite justify the cost without cashback.
So – all in all, I’m really not sure what to do – on the one hand, it’s not a great deal of effort, on the other I’m not sure I like being dictated to & I’m not sure of the added value.
TTFN
BFG
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on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 at 09:53 and is filed under Affiliate Stuff.
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