Who doesn’t love shopping online? You get to stay in your PJs, find the best deals, and then get happy mail! But what really made me an avid online shopper was discovering cash back sites. As I mention in my post on about using cash back sites, you can get up to 10% back (and sometimes more!) on your purchases, just for using these sites. Pretty amazing if you ask me!
In today’s post, I’ll be sharing my experience with Ebates.ca (Canada) and Ebates.com (U.S.), both of which I use often. Between the two sites, I’ve earned over $650 in cash back. So it’s safe to say that I would recommend singing up for an Ebates account (or two, if you’re in Canada like me!) and starting to earn too. Plus, if you sign up for Ebates.com through my link, you can score a $10USD bonus once you’ve made your first purchase of $25USD or more!
What is Ebates?
Like Giving Assistant (see my full review here!), Ebates.ca and Ebates.com are shopping rewards platforms that offers shoppers cash back on many of their online purchases. As I explain in my post on how to save money on Christmas gifts, cash back sites receive a commission from the retailers you shop from, and then pass a portion of the commission back to you.
How Does it Work?
To start, sign up for an account with Ebates.ca (if you’re Canadian!) and Ebates.com (if you’re American or shop from U.S. sites). Both are free to join.
When you’re shopping online and ready to make a purchase, hop on to each site and search for your retailer. Cash back deals will be listed and you can compare them to offerings on other cash back sites that you’re a member of, like Giving Assistant.
What does the process of using an Ebates account look like?
Let’s say, for example, that we’re shopping online at Sephora and we have accounts with Ebates.ca, Ebates.com, and Giving Assistant. We’d search for Sephora on all 3 sites to see which is offering the best deal.
In this case, Ebates.ca is offering the most cash back at 8%. This is because they are offering double cash back on some sites.
Based on this, it makes more sense to go through Ebates.ca for the purchase. Click the retailer name and you’ll be taken to a page with more coupon codes, information on payment speed, and a link to shop. Click the red “Shop Now” button and you’ll be taken back to the Sephora website, but with a special code that tells Sephora that Ebates.ca sent you.
Make your payment as you normally would. Your Ebates.ca account will record the cash back and you will receive an email with your cash back details.
You can also always check your Cash Back Balance to see what you’ve earned and when it’s been paid.
A Few Final Thoughts
First, not all stores on the Ebates.ca or Ebates.com sites offer cash back; they may instead have coupon codes listed so still worth checking out before you make a purchase.
Second, when you navigate to the store page on either Ebates site, you can see cash back amounts for various categories, where applicable. There are some stores that offer different cash back amounts of different categories of products.
Happy shopping and happy giving! Leave a comment below and let me know which stores you plan on shopping. And don’t forget to sign up here for your $10 bonus. (And check out my other favourite cash back sites here!)
I recently got into Ebates as well. Definitely worth while 🙂
[…] blogged in the past about saving money shopping online with Ebates (full post here), but thought I’d share an example of how to maximize your online savings by using a few […]
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Awesome! Hope you love it as much as I do! 🙂