Confessions of a voucher vulture

Voucherholic: thrifty Emma McCarthy with some of her voucher purchases
Emma McCarthy10 April 2012

Following the festive excesses and January sales - and with many of us still a fortnight short of payday - the chances are your bank balance is looking pretty painful. In fact, don't look, but do consider what I am about to tell you: get clued up about internet discount vouchers.

Like an increasing numbers of Londoners, I am a voucherholic. I make daily trips to money-saving coupon sites, where the purchase of an online voucher means you can then buy everything from a simple cinema ticket to a neck massage in real time - and at fantastically reduced prices.

It has been a year since I first dabbled with discounts, and now I rarely find myself void of a voucher. But this is far from the world of supermarket coupon clipping. This is about getting what you want, when you want it - just at a lesser cost.

Daily trips to Groupon, Vouchercloud, KGB, Money Saving Expert, Quidco and topcashback.com help maintain my new faux-luxury lifestyle. And in a city with such a high cost of living, Londoners are some of the most susceptible to the sort of value-rich binges I routinely enjoy.

A steady drip feed of deals from Groupon usually kick-starts my morning fix. The company, founded in Chicago, is currently the biggest daily discount provider in the world, with over 142 million global subscribers and 1,000 deals available every day in 45 countries.

"Groupon is like the Robin Hood of the 21st century - it lets the little person enjoy things which they wouldn't normally be able to afford," states one user on the company's forum, but the company - reportedly worth around $12.7 billion - is certainly no selfless new venture.

Groupon takes a 50 per cent cut from the businesses it features, leaving the consumer free to enjoy the full wallop discount. Examples of top Groupon deals that thousands of Londoners took advantage of have included a £1 voucher to watch any film at Cineworld costing up to £12; £17.50 for a £67 three-course meal; free entry and a cocktail at the west London's Supperclub and £119 for seven IPL hair removal sessions costing £2,400 - a 95 per cent saving.

As for me, I've sampled seven-course taster menus for less than a tenner, a spa day with two treatments for £35 and saved myself 61 per cent on a case of shiraz for my grandparents' Christmas present. So far, I haven't had a bad experience. Though, as the British leg of the company is being investigated by the Office of Fair Trading over complaints about alleged advertising infringements, I may be one of the lucky ones.

As the company continues to grow in popularity - helped by subscribers sharing deals via Facebook and Twitter - it seems inevitable that businesses will start to cotton on to a flaw in the system: customer disloyalty. Consumers are encouraged to flit between companies on these ultimate shop-around sites, to secure the best deals.

While I was busy taking advantage of an offer at a London salon for a cut, colour, intensive conditioning treatment and blow-dry for only £42 instead of £172, I discovered I was one of the last Grouponers to redeem the offer. Seeing as the discount had been running for over six months and 1,500 had taken it, I asked if any of the Grouponers made follow-up appointments.

"Perhaps a handful," explained my stylist, "but then, these people will always be looking for the next voucher."

I must admit, I felt a little ashamed to be put in this money hungry bracket - and left with a price list and the promise to return for a blow-dry soon. I never went back. Well, the blow-dry was only £8 cheaper than the voucher.

"A lot of brands try to use these discounts to encourage brand loyalty, but consumers are not in that game at all," says Mark Daley, a retail development manager and avid voucher user. "You use these systems to your advantage as a consumer and people have come to expect discounts now. Retailers have just made a rod for their own backs - everyone just waits for the sale. It's the death of full-price."

At 41 and with an annual income of £80,000, Daley is not your typical voucher vulture but he puts my efforts to shame. "I'm better off now than I've ever been, despite the recession, but it doesn't matter how much money you earn, you'd be stupid not to shop around. It's how you get rich, and I think if you live in an expensive city like London it's your duty to try to find the best deal. People don't want to cut back on their lifestyles, but I know I've become more value-conscious.

"It's become a bit of a competition between us and the retailers - not to just buy at the first price you see. Of course, when you work it out, you realise you've probably spent about eight hours hunting just to get a tenner off, but it's become a personal challenge," he adds.

But Daley - who started using Groupon 18 months ago - has become bored with the avalanche of emails from the company which aren't of any interest to him. The majority of subscribers are between 18 and 34, and 77 per cent are female - so offers for hair, nails and spa treatments are numerous.

Instead, he uses different sites to cater for different needs. "I use Achica for household things - I got a Tefal saucepan for £5 - the vouchercloud app for when I'm out and about, and Quidco for everything else."

With over 1.6 million members and 60,000 people joining each month, British-based Quidco is like a supermarket clubcard on steroids. It operates a third-party cashback scheme, so if a consumer visits the site before making a purchase at affiliated stores, Quidco gives 100 per cent of its commission - paid by the businesses from advertising - back to you.

It took me a while to get to grips with the concept - down to a too-good-to-be-true hesitation - but after I was paid £106 for upgrading to an £69 iPhone 4 handset via Quidco, I welcomed the middleman with open arms.

"A great aspect of the Quidco system is that the cashback you've earned over the last calendar year is on the homepage as soon as you log in," says Daley, "my balance is currently £1,100 for the year - so I've saved that much on things I would have bought anyway with almost no extra effort. And I'm taking it to new heights now - you can go on to Quidco before you buy your Groupon and make money off your voucher purchases."

Now that's dedication. Anyone else for spending money to make money?

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