frugal underground

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I am one of the many people who are better at “paying back” than “saving up” for bigger ticket purchases. That’s obviously not a good reason to use credit cards (or any other form of debt), but that’s my personality.

So what is a spender to do when faced with this dilemma? Anyone remember layaway?

For those who don’t, layaway was a service that many stores used to offer (but most have discontinued, thanks to the popularity of credit cards). Instead of buying something now and paying for it later (the credit card model), layaway let you pay for something over time for a small, fixed fee (if there was one), and have the product stored for you until you’d paid for it. Maybe not as fun as instant gratification, but much more responsible and frankly, more satisfying in the long run.

Well, as it turns out, the fabulous Internet has enabled layaway to make a comeback. Enter eLayaway, the online service that gives you the old layaway benefits with modern technology. There are some smart features, like auto draft from a checking account to make it easy to stay on top of it, and automatic shipping when the item is paid for.

The only downside is that there aren’t very many participating merchants at the moment. I expect this is a short-term problem, because they’ve made their pricing very attractive to merchants (much cheaper than credit card processing if there’s any sales volume at all) and merchants will be able to use this service to differentiate themselves and show they are thinking of their customers’ best interests.

Found via Springwise.

Last week I received notification that the site 100 Big Coupons wanted to purchase a review here. Fair enough, I thought, and agreed.

According to their review request, they “… offer coupons for all the major online stores to help people save money while still getting what they want. The service is free to use for anyone who wishes and requires no registration or personal information.” With that in mined, I’ve looked over the site and have come away with a few main impressions.

Design

My first impression was one of being overwhelmed. There is a lot of information on that front page, and I can’t immediately tell what’s most important. The headings on the sidebar are decent, but what can I say, I’m a designer and I felt somewhat lost. Because I’m getting paid for this review, I took the time to sort through everything, but I’m not sure I would have if I’d just stumbled across the site.

Functionality

What does the site actually do? They share coupon codes. You know when you place an online order and it says “If you have a coupon code, enter it here”? Well, there are lots of sites that gather and share various promotional codes in the hopes of making money either through advertising or affiliate programs. 100 Big Coupons is one of these sites. I make it a habit to search for coupon codes when checking out at stores that usually have them, like GoDaddy, so I’ve seen lots of these sites.

When I clicked around through 100 Big Coupons, I found a fair amount of coupons, but also some confusion. For instance, clicking on a product category brought up a list of stores in that category, and also said: “View the 36 coupons in this category:” The colon made me assume the coupons were listed below… but they weren’t. I assumed something was broken. Later, I moused over the statement and realized it was a link, and clicking it brought up the promised coupon. However, since it isn’t underlined until I put my mouse over it, I didn’t realize that I could click it.

Similarly, I tried a search for GoDaddy, since I know they almost always have coupons floating around, and essentially got a blank page as a result. There wasn’t even a statement that there were no coupons found. I understand that no one website will have all available coupons listed (and I think that 100 Big Coupons isn’t even interested in listing domain name coupons) but I found the response unhelpful and potentially confusing.

When you DO find a coupon that interests you, though, the site is good about giving you the information you need to use the coupon.

But can it save me money?

Possibly. It depends on the kinds of things you buy, and mostly on whether you’ll remember to check the site before purchasing.

Suggestions

I feel like 100 Big Coupons is trying to be too many things to too many people. I imagine that offering coupons is a fairly low-profit-margin business, so a lot of eyeballs are crucial, but I’d much prefer to see the site focus a little and branch out within a niche. For instance, I frequent sites that feature domain coupons. Why not create a site that focuses on exclusively on Women’s Clothing (for instance) and has a blog that not only lists coupons but alerts readers to unusually good deals? That way you as a customer don’t have to go out of your way to check the site; it’s more likely that you’d use a coupon because you were already subscribed to the site.

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