One in four online deals mislead shoppers

One in four online deals mislead shoppers

A quarter of discount codes on voucher sites invalid or out of date, Reevoo.com finds

London, 24th September 2009 – Shoppers who spend as much as two hours in a search of attractive discounts online are being misled by popular voucher sites and discount codes. According to Reevoo.com research, one in four vouchers, offered for six top electrical retailers, are invalid or out of date. (see note 1)

Voucher sites collect and display discount codes which shoppers can enter during the checkout phase on retailers’ web sites and are an increasingly popular destination for price-conscious shoppers. The number of shoppers searching for the top four voucher sites tripled between 2007 and 2008 (see note 2) and searches for voucher codes jumped a further 50 per cent between 2008 and 2009.(see note 3)

Despite stricter guidelines issued this year by the Internet Advertising Bureau aimed at preventing voucher sites misleading consumers (see note 4), many of these shoppers may be disappointed by the voucher codes they find. Reevoo.com discovered that one in four voucher codes on the five most popular voucher sites would not get shoppers any discounts.

Bargain-hungry shoppers can spend as long as 4.6 hours researching products online (see note 5), including using price comparison sites to find the best deals. Whilst voucher sites can save consumers money, wading through hundreds of vouchers to find active deals can add as much as two hours onto the shopping process.

Mark Cook, Search Marketing Director of Further, the search and social media marketing agency, said: “I rarely bother [using voucher sites] nowadays because the amount of time it takes to find a ‘legit’ voucher site normally outweighs whatever saving I would have made with the voucher.”

A recent investigation of online voucher sites by Which? found that cheaper deals can often be found on price comparison sites, saving shoppers up to 25 per cent over the best price on voucher sites. (see note 6)

Customer demand for vouchers has led top price comparison sites to incorporate vouchers into their price lists so that shoppers no longer have to scour the Internet for cheaper prices. Shoppers can save time and money by comparing discount voucher prices alongside regular prices from retailers to find the best deal. Reevoo.com, the shopping advice site, has gone one step further by ensuring that every voucher is manually checked, eliminating the frustration of inactive discount codes. Find Reevoo vouchers here.

Reevoo.com CEO and founder, Richard Anson said, “It’s all well and good trying to save consumers time and money, but it defies the point when so many of these deals are inactive or out of date. It’s shopping sites’ responsibility to ensure every deal they publish is valid.”

About Reevoo

Reevoo.com provides trusted advice to help shoppers decide what to buy and where to buy with confidence. Reevoo supports 90 European retailers and manufacturers by providing them with genuine customer opinion and reviews on-line, in-store and via a mobile platform. These channels enable businesses to engage with shoppers, leading to a direct increase in sales. Reevoo ensures that every customer review is from a real shopper and commits to publishing all product reviews, good or bad, enhancing credibility in a world where trust is increasingly hard to gain and maintain.

Notes to Editors

1. Reevoo.com surveyed a representative sample of over 100 vouchers offering discounts at Comet, Currys, Dixons, PC World, Argos and Tesco, displayed on the five most popular voucher sites: Myvouchercodes.co.uk, Vouchercodes.co.uk, Everydaysale.co.uk, Hotukdeals.com and Vouchercodes.com. The most reliable voucher site was MyVoucherCodes.co.uk, with 1 in 10 vouchers valid; the worst offender was HotUKDeals, which had 72% inactive codes. 100% of the voucher codes shown on Reevoo.com are valid.

2. Data from Google Trends, showing traffic to Myvouchercodes.co.uk, Vouchercodes.co.uk, Everydaysale.co.uk and Vouchercodes.com. (No data was available for Hotukdeals.com, another popular site.) In 2007, there were around 22,000 visits per day to the four sites; in 2008 there were 85,000 a day.

3. From research by Hitwise, a leading online intelligence agency. Searches for a portfolio of 4,500 voucher-related search terms increased 47.5% between the weeks ending 02/08/2008 and 01/08/2009.

4. The Internet Advertising Bureau is the UK’s trade association for Internet advertisers. In March 2009, the IAB strengthened guidelines first issued in December 2008, to provide more concrete definitions of offers and sales and restrict the promotion of expired vouchers. New guidlelines

5. Research by FlyResearch for Reevoo.com, October 2008. The average amount of time spent researching a product online prior to purchase is
3.8 hours for large audio-visual electricals (eg TVs)
2.4 hours for small audio-visual electricals (eg MP3 players)
2.7 hours for large home electricals (eg fridges)
1.5 hours for small home electrical (eg kettles)
4.6 hours for computing products (eg laptops)

6. Which? surveyed Myvouchercodes.co.uk, Vouchercodes.co.uk, Everydaysale.co.uk, Hotukdeals.com and Vouchercodes.com in February 2009. The results showed that lower prices could frequently be found on price comparison sites, not least because many of the voucher codes on voucher sites were no longer valid.
For example, the best prices for a Panasonic Viera TX-32LZD80 TV ranged from £539 to £703 on voucher sites, but price comparison sites found the same model for only £530 – up to 25% cheaper.