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Coupon Codes Popular With Online Shoppers

Smart design can drive traffic and customers to your website.

Records numbers of shoppers are turning to the internet to make their holiday purchases. Black Friday and Cyber Monday were extremely popular days for shoppers to make online purchases this year. Tech savvy shoppers are always looking for a bargain, and most use the internet to compare prices and find deals. This holds true for both online and in-store purchases. Users will often view the in-store advertisements online ahead of time, before they venture out to the stores.

Many users with smartphones are also comparing prices while in a store by scanning barcodes on products, and using aps like Red Laser and ShopSavvy to find out which merchant might have the best price on a particular item.

When shopping online, many users visit sites like Retailmenot.com, Ultimatecoupons.com or Couponcabin.com for coupon codes that can provide additional savings for online purchases. These coupons often range from a percentage off, to dollars off, or the ever popular free shipping. These additional savings may make the difference in whether an order is placed online -- many users are happy to forgo the immediate gratification of seeing and purchasing an item in-store, if they can save money and don't have to pay shipping fees.

Coupon discount codes can be useful for small businesses launching websites to drive traffic and sales to their sites, and they also can help reward and retain customers. They maybe sent to existing customers to encourage repeat business.

By sharing coupon codes on popular community sites, a new business might be able to attract customers to their website and products. Retailmenot.com and Ultimatecoupons.com also have mechanisms for submitting coupons for new websites that aren't currently listed on their site. This could help drive traffic and revenue to your website.

Online merchants should carefully plan and fully think through all the coupon codes they intend to offer on their website. A very large coupon sharing community exists online, and coupon codes can easily and quickly be shared with thousands of users outside their originally intended audience. Thus, merchants should make sure that they only offer online coupons that make financial sense for their business -- ones that still allow them to make a profit or at least break even on most transactions.

"Percentage off" coupons are usually a safer idea, as any discount is relative to the overall purchase price -- and there isn't any risk of the coupon amount exceeding the total amount due (as can be the case with "dollars off" coupons). Another good idea is to have a minimum purchase amount, as well as an expiration date.

The shopping carts that we build for our web design and development clients, all have coupon code functionality built in and tailored to their specific needs.

If you would like to discuss your shopping cart or website project with us, please give us a call at (512) 469-7454.

Bob Atchison

Austin Texas Web Design