Years ago, I sat with my fiance, now my husband, in the balcony of a dark theater watching Rob Becker’s antics about men and women in the hilarious one-man comedy “Defending the Caveman.”
Throughout the routine, he described the age of the caveman when women were the gatherers and men the hunters and how we haven’t changed all that much.
In one example, he explained, “As gatherers, women would feel the fruit, check the color and ripeness, gather the fruit in baskets and bring it back home to the family. Men would sit very still in fields and trees for hours and take down their prey in a quick, swift, decisive motion.
“Take men and women today and take shopping. Women feel the cloth, try on the shoes, and spend hours looking and gathering before bringing it all home. Men go straight into the mall, buy what they need and are in and out in a matter of minutes. They have found their prey, killed it and brought it back home to cook.”
Though we spent the entire performance laughing tears into our eyes, much of what Becker said rang true in the battle of the sexes. It also rings true when I think about online shopping. I like to feel and see what I am going to buy. Why would I give that up for sales and deals through the computer?
Guy King, founder of RetailMeNot.com, answered a few of my questions on this very matter. Apparently, the use of the site has gone up 20 percent in the last month and consumers are taking advantages of many of the coupons offered by the larger fashion retailers. Though in-store coupons can be printed, many coupon codes require buying the item online; but, the sales are too good to miss, even if it means not seeing the item until it arrives.
In a survey, King learned that online shoppers were saving on average about $29 on $151 in sales. That’s good for only seconds worth of research.
When asked about the advantages of shopping online versus looking through the paper for coupons, he said, “Generally speaking, you can find online coupons much more specific to your purchases then traditional offline paper coupons. For example, looking in the paper you might see a coupon for a specific brand of toothpaste or a specific local store. By visiting sites such as RetailMeNot.com users can quickly search and browse more than 100,000 offers from more than 20,000 merchants.”
King adds, “Shopping online there are two type of coupons: ‘coupon codes’ and ‘printable coupons.’A coupon code is a special word you enter at checkout to enable a discount, freebie, etc. For example enter “CHOICES009″ for 20 percent off crocs.com at the moment.
“Printable coupons can be printed from your home computer and presented at physical stores- for example two dollars off Papa Murphy’s pizzas. The catch with printable coupons is that sometimes it won’t be honored due to fraudulent coupons floating around online.”
When asked what differentiated his site from many others, King replied, “RetailMeNot.com is a very collaborative model where everyone can share and vote on coupons. Because of this, we have many more coupons then our nearest competitor and you can see straight away which coupons people find useful. On average, more than 400 new coupons are added each and every day so if there’s an online coupon you’re going to find it on RetailMeNot.com.”
In all honestly, I am not the best coupon clipper but it is certainly worthwhile to check out sites such at this before heading out to “gather” the ripest deal.
As always, send your tips and questions to Sarah at sarah@peppel.com or send me a tweet at www.twitter.com/GenMom.
This article originally posted at the Phoenix on March 25, 2009 and will be referenced by Chesco Moms in June-July 2009.
