It’s time to cash in on shopping

Consumers can get money back when they shop, if they go to the right website, writes

MONEY for nothing was a term the band Dire Straits used to describe the everyday worker’s perception of a rock star’s job, but Australian families have the chance to get the next best thing … money for shopping.

A percentage of every grocery, petrol, or even clothes retail bill, or sometimes a dollar amount, is paid back to shoppers who use Cashrewards.com.au, one of a number of cashback shopping websites to pop up recently.

And record numbers of Aussies are logging on and saving, according to Cashrewards founder and CEO Andrew Clarke.

“We’ve got 350,000 Australian members and many of these save thousands a year,” Mr Clarke said.

“We launched three years ago, but just one year ago we had half those numbers.”

Cashback sites are usually free to join for shoppers. The retail brands aligned with the site pay a commission to the cashback site and then part of that is passed back to the consumer.

“The shopping experience is the same, you just have to start by going to our site,” Mr Clarke said.

“If you then start shopping at Woolworths, you still get all the benefits of their own rewards programs, or whatever discount bonuses on offer.”

Cashrewards takes an average commission from the retail brands of around 30 per cent and consumers get an average of 7 per cent back on their purchase, though the amount varies between brands.

This means a family spending $200 a week on groceries might average $14 back each week. That works out to $700 a year saved by just shopping from a different online starting point.

“More people are shopping online and this is just another benefit,” Mr Clarke said. “We’re forecasting in the next two years that we’ll go to two million members thanks to the boom in online shopping.”

One of the biggest challenges for cashback sites is reminding people to begin their shopping session at their website rather than going straight to the retailer’s site. Cashrewards is combating this with a downloadable notifier, which alerts you when you go directly to a store online that is a cashback participator.

This is handy, because often major retailers that list with cashback sites do not tell their customers, according to Bek TASTY CREATIONS: Lisette Armstrong runs her own ‘side hustle’ called Treat Dreams, a company which makes vegan-friendly chocolates. Darmody, CEO and founder of Retail Rewards Club.

“People could be putting hundreds, or even thousands, back into their pockets with every purchase they make but are missing out because retailers are not letting them know,” Ms Darmody said. “Retailers are reluctant to let their customers know because of how much the customer can save rather than fuelling mass profits for the companies.

“It is becoming so common now for retail giants to squeeze billions out of consumers, so it’s about time that consumers got some benefit too.”