Finding discounts for popular online shops

You can find discounts for popular online shops by traversing forums and boards, Yahoo groups, even signing up for newsletters and catalogs

Photo Credit: Karen Roach
By Kevin VanGinkel

Ferreting out discounts and coupons for online shops is a great way to save money when making online purchases. Besides saving on the initial purchase itself, free shipping offers and dollars off future orders are often available. Anyone that is willing to do a moderate amount of investigating is often generously rewarded. Thankfully, popular online shops offer discounts to their customers in numerous ways. By doing some browsing both online and off, you will be able to shop your favorite web stores and save a few dollars at the same time.

Catalogs

Many online shops send out print catalogs several times a year. Others allow you to sign up for catalogs or mailings that offer specials to those willing to subscribe. It is well worth signing up for these publications as they oftentimes include discount codes and coupons that can be redeemed during your online checkout. Some even offer special deals available only to those who receive the catalog mailings. Dell computers are one such online shop that offers discount codes in their print catalogs. Amazon.com has also issued mailings during the holidays that included codes to be redeemed on free shipping and discounts.

Online Coupons

Type the phrase Online Coupon, or Coupon Code into Google, Yahoo, or any favorite online search engine and you will be rewarded with an abundant amount of coupon and discount offerings. From within the results, click on one of the websites listed, such as Coupon Mountain, and you will soon be browsing discounts and coupons for popular stores such as Office Depot, Staples, Overstock, Pro Flowers Red Envelope, Blue fly, HP, Dell, Smart Bargains, Old Navy, American Eagle, and many more. If you are unsure of the store itself that you are in search of, but know what type of item you are shopping for, most sites also break down their discount listings by category: Books and Magazines, Groceries, WomenÃ¯Â¿Â½s Apparel, MenÃ¯Â¿Â½s Apparel, Pet Supplies, Music and Video, Office Supplies, and other popular categories.

Coupon and Discount Forums and Boards

Because many online stores offer deep discounts that last a relatively short period, many people have formed online bulletin boards and forums to share information of this sort in a timely fashion. Some require you to become a member while others may ask for your support in other ways, such as sharing your own coupon and discount code discoveries. Others still will require no participation whatsoever. To find a board or forum using your search engine of choice, type in coupon or discount forum in the search field. Daily Freebies is an example of one such site that you may discover in your search. It has an active members list that is constantly updating and sharing information on everything from free shipping codes, dollars off, totally free items, even customer service number exchanges. Many boards of this type are also open to people asking for specific codes and discounts. If you were going to be making a purchase from a particular online source, check to see if anyone has a code for that store.

Groups

Yahoo groups have grown expansively in the last few years. At last count, they had over one hundred listings of active groups that came up when searching for those focused on online coupons. Similar to the forums, groups have the added bonus of having listings posted sent to your email address individually or as a daily digest. You can also choose to read postings online.

Newsletter

If the site you are planning on shopping has an email list or newsletter, sign up for it. Many will send you coupons and discount codes intermittently, while some will send you an offer immediately upon registration.

Remember when shopping online that it pays to spend some time seeing if any discounts or coupons are available for the store you are planning to shop. Popular stores want to stay popular so they often offer some of the biggest and best discounts. You just need to know where to find them.