Huh? What's an affiliate link? Y'all know what an ad is, right? Some store has paid good money to advertise their stuff in the local paper, banner ads, on TV or wherever. You also know the concept of "word-of-mouth". Well, someone had the great idea that instead of spending big bucks on these ads, they'd pay money to those who people who "tell" others to buy from their stores. It's the "If I had a dime for every time I..." thing.
Amazon.com
was one of those companies who first started paying other websites, or what they call "affiliates", to refer people to their store. Amazon would pay the referring website a certain amount for each person who came and made a purchase. This was much cheaper and more effective than paying for ads.But it's the referring website that's getting the referral fee, not you. So what good is that? Why would I bother going to a referring website, then to the final store instead of going directly to the store? Well little grasshopper, that's where some enterprising websites come in.
Everybody wants to make a buck, so some websites like FatWallet.com and eBates.com decided to share the wealth or "share the love" as Amazon.com would say. By clicking through these affiliate websites to your final destination website, Fatwallet and eBates will share their referral fees with you. Sweet eh?
Don't worry, you're not paying a dime more for using these referral links. It's not only transparent, but it's free to you, the prices you pay are exactly the same as if you had gone directly to the website, AND you get anywhere from 1 to 15% of your purchase back in cold hard cash-ola (well, a cheque or direct deposit to your Paypal or bank account).
The concept is similar to those credit cards that give you air miles for all your purchases. In this case, instead of a credit card that tracks your purchases, you use a referring website and they give you actual dollars back for your qualifying purchases. Don't worry, they don't track you or watch what you buy, they just send a referral code to the destination store that identifies which website referred you so that the store knows who to pay the referral fee. The referring websites have no knowledge of what you buy, the actual store tracks your purchase and pays the affiliate the referral fee.
So how does this all work? How do I do this? It sounds too complicated.
Bah, it's easy as pie. Here's an example scenario. Let's say you want buy a new Dell computer. You go to Fatwallet.com and register with them (they need to know who to send the money to). Click on the Hot Deals forum and do a search for Dell computer. You'll find a gazillion posts talking about hot deals and coupon codes available at Dell.
Once you find a good deal there, you click on the 'Stores' link in FatWallet. Find the link for Dell Home Systems. Listed there are more coupon codes and sales, and a link to take you to Dell. Currently, you'll get 3% of your purchase back for buying through the Fatwallet link. Click on the link and a new browser window will open up to Dell's website (make sure you allow popups from the fatwallet site if you're using a popup blocker). Make your purchase (don't forget to use a coupon code - right now they have a coupon for $500 off a certain laptops and free shipping), wait for your computer to come, then 3 months later a cheque for 3% of your purchase will be waiting for you.
Not only did you save money on your new computer, but you just got money back for going through FatWallet.com. On a purchase of $1000, that's worth 30 smackers. FREE.
It's so easy, there's no excuse for not buying through those Fatwallet or eBates.com. And if you want, I'll send you a referral email for ebates.com. If you sign up and make a purchase, ebates will send me $5 for referring you ;)
My Favorite Cash Back Web Sites
(Don't forget to register with the website to setup an account)
Happy shopping :)
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