Guest Post by Nathan Beers
Nathan Beers is a former professional poker player turned developer. He is currently living in Tampa, FL and working as a full-stack web developer. He is really very fascinated by learning new technologies and love to write about them. He intensely believes in a decentralized internet with no government involvement and enjoys trading crypto currencies. Connect with Nathan online, via Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
Since its emergence, Ebates has taken the world by storm with so many attractive features. While it has a lot of features, its most attractive feature is its cash back offer. Here are the most important reasons you should shop on Ebates always.
Cash Back Offers
When Ebates first came up with this offer, a lot of people were quite skeptical about its credibility. They wondered how it would work. In fact, some people are still skeptical about the whole idea.
How it Works?
Ebates does not really sell products on its own. The site is an affiliate to over 1800 stores. So, they earn commissions for referring people. What they give out is just a slice of the pie.
They give the buyer a fraction of their commission on each product. Do you get it now? Now you understand that it is quite possible to earn money when you make purchases. The best part is that it is free money. It requires no effort at all. You only need to buy what you have always bought. No amount is too small when it is earned without any effort.
Initially, the amount may seem small, but when you leave it over time, it will add up to a tangible amount. If you are a regular buyer, you may earn up to $15 in a month. In a year, it will amount up to $180 without doing anything. It will be much more if you are shopaholic.
Great Deals
Being a smart person, you are already thinking that each store must have added the commission to the cost of the products. Isn’t it? You feel each store must have marked up their prices with the amount of the agreed commission. While your thought is not out of place as some stores adopt the strategy, Ebates does not work like that.
You get only fair deals on the platform. In fact, you are free to do ebates review and compare Ebates’ prices with the prices in other stores to appreciate the prices more. You know that Ebates is affiliated to over 1800 stores and there is tight competition among these stores. This is why they are forced to offer low prices and commissions too.
It is very easy to open an Ebates account. In fact in two minutes you are done. You can either create the account with your email address or your Facebook address. Sometimes, Ebates offer signup rewards too. They sometimes give $5 for just signing up. Once you sign up, you are free to begin shopping and earning cash backs. Right now, the signup or welcome bonus is $10. You will earn that amount just for signing up.
Earn $25 for Referring a Friend
You can also make money for referring a friend. Imagine being able to refer just 10 friends, you will earn $250. Can you beat that? The most attractive part of this is that you need little efforts to refer friend. You only need to tell your friends about the cash back offer, $10 signup bonus, and referral bonus. Who does not want to earn free money?
You will earn a bonus for every qualified referral. It is important to note that a qualified referral is a referral that signs up during the referral period and makes a minimum purchase that earns him cash back within just one year after joining the platform.
If you put your heart in it, you will always find people to refer. If you are serious about it, you can make it a target to refer at least two people in a month. Now do the arithmetic. If you refer two people in a month, you will earn $50 ($25 x 2) and you can also earn $10 as cash back. This makes it a total of $60 in a month. In a year, it will amount to $720 ($60 x 12). You will earn at least $720 for doing next to nothing. Remember, that the $10 for signing up is not even included yet. However, this promotion is open to only the residents of the United States.
Ease of Use
By having over 1800 stores on their platform, you will think it will be difficult to order from the site. Contrary to your thought, it is very easy to order products from Ebates because the stores are well arranged. Just click on any store of interest. You will be taken to the store’s website.
Once you make a purchase, Ebates will be notified and you will get your cash back into your Ebates account. So, it is very easy to use. If you know the name of your store, you can also search it out. You will be taken there instantly.
Transparency
Once you click on a store on Ebates, you will be taken to the store and the amount you will earn on each product will be displayed. The ones without cash back amount display are the ones that are not eligible for cash back. So, the system is highly transparent and straightforward. You already know how much you will earn even before you purchase.
The offers are great
Ebates offers great deals and these deals change all the time. This is not only about cash backs. You can still enjoy some other deals. For instance, there are several volume concessions. There was a time a store offered three great t-shirts for $15. That is already a great offer but as an icing on the case, that particular offer also had 6.0% cash back on it.
For some people, checking different stores for different concessions and cash backs is fun on its own. So, when next you want to buy anything on Ebates, you may need to check several stores for the best deal on the product before you make the purchase.
Ebates (Offer a Wide Variety)
Instead of having to check different stores on different websites, you can gain access to over 1,800 stores directly on Ebates. This is particularly beneficial for those that compare prices of products before they choose where to buy the product. Whether the product has cash back or not, is another issue entirely.
In a nutshell, Ebates makes price comparisons very easy and fast for customers. You will get all you need on a single website.
24/7 Customer Support
Ebates offers a great customer care team that is always too eager to resolve your issues as quickly as possible. So, if you have any issue, all you have to do is to fill their contact form and their customer service team will get back to you as quickly as possible.
Promotional emails
If you join, you will continue to receive regular promotional emails on the best deals. However, this is not compulsory. You can opt out of it. When you opt out of promotional emails, you will still be receiving administrative emails like your cash back update.
3 Ways to Receive Your Payment
You can receive your payment in 3 ways. The check can be sent directly to you. The second option is to receive it through PayPal. The third option is to have it sent to someone else. It all depends on your personal preference and you can make your choice through your Big Fat check setting.
Social Media Integration
For ease of signing in, your Ebates account can be connected to your Google or Facebook account. However, your Ebates email address must be the same as your Facebook email address to be able to carry it out.
No Membership Fee
Ebates will never ask you for a membership fee. It is free to join and you can either refer a friend or shop to earn. This advantage is worthy of mention because some similar sites usually ask for a one-time membership fee.
No Cash Back Limit
Some organizations have a limit to how much you can earn in a particular period and in a lifetime. On Ebates, there is no limit to how much you can earn on your purchases and when you refer a friend. This is why some people leave their earnings in their accounts until the earning reaches a particular amount of money.
No Filling of Forms
There is no doubt, filling of forms sucks. Why do you even have to fill a form to claim what rightfully belongs to you? You don’t need to fill any form on Ebates. Your earnings will be calculated and paid automatically according to their payment cycles.
Availability of “Favorite” Function
When you “favorite” (listing a store among your favorite stores) a store, you will receive regular alerts on the special deals in the store always. That way, you won’t need to search through thousands of deals. No matter the number of stores you list as your favorite, you will receive alerts from all of them.
Site Map
For easy navigation, Ebates has already arranged the pages on its website in a very simple manner. Here is the site map. There are 6 main pages and they are online stores, online coupons, My account, Help Page, Refer-A-Friend, and How Ebates Works.
There are seasonal or specialty pages which are made of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Free Shipping, In-store cash back, Wedding, and Luxury.
Another important category to consider is the shopping categories. It is meant for all the categories of products that are offered on Ebates. The categories are:
• Women’s Clothing
• Travel & Vacations
• Sports & Outdoors
• Shoes & Handbags
• Men’s Clothing
• Office Supplies
• Home, Garden & Tools
• Health & Beauty
• Food & Restaurants
• Flower & Gifts
• Electronic & Computers
• Books & Digital Media
• Baby, Kids & Toys
Virtually all the biggest online retailers are already on the platform. Ebates features sites like Amazon, Ebay, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Walmart, and Groupon, just to mention a few.
Ebates-Hotels are another arm of the platform dedicated to travel related services. Here is how it works. You can also earn cash back when you book through Ebates Hotels. This can only be done online. While most of the hotels require full payment at the time of booking a reservation to guarantee your reservation until when you decide to check in, others allow you to pay within 72 hours after booking your reservation.
The accepted credit cards are Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express. Unfortunately, Ebates does not allow splitting of payment and paying through multiple cards at this time. You may need to merge your funds together into one account. All your payments should be made through just one credit card.
You can receive a full refund if you cancel your reservation within some hotel’s cancellation deadline. But you should bear in mind that not all hotels offer full refund. Some offer full refund, some offer partial refund, while others offer no refund at all. So, it is advisable to review each hotel’s cancellation policy before booking a reservation. Apart from that, you should also review all the policies in a hotel before booking. All the hotels on Ebates Hotels offer various terms of services and rates. This is necessary as some people usually erroneously assume that there will be uniformity in the terms of service among Ebates Hotels.
For proper reconciliation of funds, cash backs may not be posted into your account until 14 days after your trip. However, if you do not receive your cash back after 15 days, you should notify Ebates to help out. Unfortunately, booking through Ebates Hotels does not count for hotel loyalty program except for a very few cases. You can’t have your cake and eat it. You need to choose either Ebates cash back or hotel loyalty programs.
Before making any changes to your reservation, you should understand that you may forfeit your cash back for the hotel stay. Besides, you will be solely responsible for whatever charges it may incur. Ebates Hotels will not charge you for making any changes to your reservation but you may have to bear the penalty if any.
Drawbacks of choosing Ebates
There are a couple of not-so-bad drawbacks on Ebates. One of them is the fact that the cash back policy does not work for all the products of some of the stores. Take Amazon for instance. The policy only works for some sections on Amazon and not all sections. In reality, this is not a real drawback since Ebates offers wonderful prices. It is the cash back that won’t apply.
Another drawback is that it takes quite some time before your earned cash is paid into your account. For your earnings on the purchases you made from January 1 to March 31, you will be paid on May 15. When you make purchases anytime from April 1 to June 30, you will be paid on August 15. What you earned from July 1 to September 30 will be paid on November 15 and your earnings on the purchases you made from October 1 to December 31 will be paid on February 15.
This requires some waiting time. It would have been perfect if you can have access to the cash you earned immediately or after 24 hours. However, some people do not see this as a drawback. They feel having to wait for it does not reduce its value. Of course, they are right. If someone promises you $250, will you reject it if he says he will only give you the money after three months? You definitely won’t. So, it is not out of place to say shopping on Ebates does not have any real drawback.
In conclusion, since it is free to join, why not just try Ebates out? You have nothing to lose. Don’t you want to earn for buying what you have been buying before? Just sign up today and you will be glad you did.
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