As if online shopping and its ever increasing trends were not enough, this arena welcomes the emergence of a new potential- the concept of cashback portals. Consumers have responded enthusiastically to it and some portals as such have made a name and reputation as well. There is enormous space available for cashback websites to expand and the extreme could be a la big bang.

What exactly is the basic vision of a cashback website? Why should we expect online shopping to be regulated completely via these portals (if the day may come)? How do these websites operate? Why should one shop online via cashback websites (the most critical of these questions perhaps)? These are the few queries which I intend to discuss through this write-up.

Product endorsement and advertisement through various media cost considerable sum of money to the companies which they compensate in the price of their products. This is where these cashback websites have taken a cue from or should I say derived their vision from.

These portals act as an interface in between retailers and online shoppers. Retailers can list themselves on such portals and offer their deals to consumers from there, thus saving up on money spent on advertisements. Once an online shopper clicks on the links of the retailers listed on these portals he is redirected to the retailer’s website and if he buys a product he would be liable to claim and hence get the cashback percentage promised by the portal on that particular retailer. The catch is he would be getting the cashback if and only if he went to the retailer’s website its link on cashback portals.

Cashback websites pay back the money to consumers through various payment options (viz. BACS, Pypal, cheques) within a pre-decided time period, the source being a variable percentage of money they receive on every purchase an online shopper does on the retailer’s website via cashback portals. They just pass a percentage of it on to the consumers making it easy and linear for everybody.

The biggest apprehension consumers have is how good these portals are at paying back their share of cashback. To be candid, this is not as simple a question, however these websites benefit from the long term association of their members and hence they would refrain from having a myopic vision of not paying the consumers and loose in the long run.

It’s your association, make it counted.