Can you please add quidco to the casback site list

Phonix

quidco is the only cashback co-operative on the web. This site offers maximum cashback and doesn't take any commision from affiliates, the site offers 100% of the affiliate cash given to it as long as you donate £5 of your cashbacks to the site so that it's properly maintained

This means it cannot offer money in support of MSE, so you will be unable to put a star next to it, and as you know Martin people tend to click the links which offer to support MSE. Given this could you recommend the site? As it promises to give 100% cashback and hence will save people substantially more money than all the others who often take 50% of the affiliate cash available for themselves. Far more important than the small donation given to your site by other cashback sites. In part they do this to get more users so they're able to make more profits.

To give you an idea of how much money we're talking about here, they offer £29 for signing up to a mobile contract at e2save.

Edinburghlass_2

I personally have joined this particular cashback website as it means that we won't be continually pressed by people seeking referral money through them.

I liked the layout and ease of use and just hope I remember to use it

Phonix

It's pretty spinky. It's powered by mambo an 'Content Management System ; CMS ' that's opensource

Free as in freedom and free beer, and quite literally free beer in this case.

jjames_3

I apologise to anyone in advance who may be associated with this site, but I'm deeply suspicious of this new site.

Firms like rpoints etc might take half the commissions, but we know at least that they're fairly reliable.

If Quidco are only taking £5 per year, this almost seems like a scam to me. I'd have been happier if they'd taken 10% of the cuts or something.

Does anyone know how to get in touch with these people, can vouch for them in any way or can confirm they've received money?

Phonix

Yes I've been in touch with them loads, they're very forthcoming.

The main guy is Paul. You can't honestly believe that rpoints needs 50% to be sustainable? They're raking in profits particually because of their policy on referal bonuses. They also know that mse is a goldmine for attracting new members which = profits, even though they are offering others the opportunity to be part of a community that will substantially save them money and I do admire this.

Also to their credit, rpoints embrace a community spirit and try to match the cashback of other sites.

There's no reason why a cashback site cannot run without making profits in my mind. The whole idea of a cashback site is that everyone makes a profit and I'm sure that in part the rpoints community wish to share this profit making ability with msers. It's just a shame they also wish to exploit them for monetary gain. This attitude goes against all their supposed principles and leads me to beleive this aspect is abit of a farse even though their 'community' is very genuine.

jjames_3

OK, thanks for the vote of support.

I think I'll be patient, and in the short term just transfer my phone company across. If the cash comes through I'll start to use them more heavily.

MSE_Martin

The cashback sites have changed quite a lot recently there are many new ones. On the list of articles to do is a full review of the internet shopping/cashback one.

I think its important its understood a full sector review like that isn't done in a matter of minutes. There's about five or six full working days worth of research done before writing to do a full comparison and analysis.

There are three main things that are done with the site

Full rewrites - main research
Small updates - for obvious and easy changes (e.g. a new savings account)

There's no way i can do a small update of the cashback article, with so many changes it needs a full review - the same way 'healthcare cashback' and 'credit card rewards' are one a year major reviews because it is an enormous project.

It is on the list of articles and the work is due to be started in about 6 to 8 weeks (amongst other things I'm due a holiday, having not had a day without work now - 7 days a week - for over 3 months) which is on the schedule.

I know people want the site looked at and we have a list of all the new sites - so rest assured it is there - unfortunately I simply don't have the resource to update EVERY article every day. If i tried to do that all the recommendations would be pants as the time spent means it wouldn't be possible to do a full review.

martin

prestatyngirl

Phonix wrote:

There's no reason why a cashback site cannot run without making profits in my mind.

That's rather naive and contradicts your subsequent statement:

The whole idea of a cashback site is that everyone makes a profit.

Everyone makes a profit....except the person running the cashback site?

Why would anyone go to the time and trouble of setting up and running a cashback site, risking their capital, for no return? Join the real world.

At least businesses like Greasypalm, Rpoints and the like give back 50% or thereabouts of the commission they receive whereas before the advent of cashback sites you wouldn't have got a sniff of the money. Even now a great many (non-cashback) affiliate concerns still keep the whole of any commission they earn for themselves.

For all we know quidco could be a fly-by-night concern which will disappear as quickly as it appeared. And with your heavy promotion of quidco, how can we be sure you haven't got a vested interest.

Phonix

hmm who rattled your cage?

Originally Posted by Phonix
There's no reason why a cashback site cannot run without making profits in my mind.

That's rather naive and contradicts your subsequent statement:


Quote:
The whole idea of a cashback site is that everyone makes a profit.

Everyone makes a profit....except the person running the cashback site?

Why would anyone go to the time and trouble of setting up and running a cashback site, risking their capital, for no return? Join the real world.

Not at all. I shall say it again. The whole idea of a cashback site is that everybody makes a profit, even on a cashback site that's run as a non-profit organisation. I understand the sentences seems a little oxymoronic and perhaps I should have explained it better but it's very true, everybody who uses a cashback site is making a profit over purchasing things elsewhere. Or better put, "everyone is getting a return on their investment."

Greasypalm, Rpoints and the like give back 50% or thereabouts of the commission they receive whereas before the advent of cashback sites you wouldn't have got a sniff of the money. Even now a great many (non-cashback) affiliate concerns still keep the whole of any commission they earn for themselves.

There overheads really are extremely low. Rpoints appears to only have one fully paid member of staff.... 50% commision is loads! I suppose you'd be happy to pay 50% commision to an estate agent next time you sell your house?

Why would anyone go to the time and trouble of setting up and running a cashback site, risking their capital, for no return? Join the real world.

Change.

As you can see from the opensource software links I gave you, there are organisations that produce incredibly complex popular software and exist entirely on donations and personal capita. They are not motivated by money, they invest their money in this venture to enable the proliferation of open standards. There's no reason why people can't set something up without expecting a return, it's greedy and exploitative to do otherwise anyway. Did Martin create this site to make a profit?..... At the beginning did he invest any of his own capital?

You seem very aggressive in your post.

prestatyngirl

Phonix wrote:

Rpoints appears to only have one fully paid member of staff.

How are you privy to this information? Or are you just guessing?

I suppose you'd be happy to pay 50% commision to an estate agent next time you sell your house?

50% of what - the sale price of the house? If so, what an absurd statement.

There's no reason why people can't set something up without expecting a return, it's greedy and exploitative to do otherwise anyway. Did Martin create this site to make a profit?..... At the beginning did he invest any of his own capital?

It appears he didn't set up the site to make a profit but he did invest his capital:

MSE_Martin wrote:

originally, I simply paid for everything and with my refusal to take ads, it was a serious expense.

But the site does make a profit now and I imagine it's a healthy one:

MSE_Martin wrote:

I've no intention to hide the fact it is a substantial part of my income. In fact I’d love it to make me a billionaire.

So in your book that's wrong too and Martin should hand it all out to the members? Are you saying Martin is "greedy and exploitative"?

Phonix

But the site does make a profit now and I imagine it's a healthy one:


Quote:
Originally Posted by MSE Martin
I've no intention to hide the fact it is a substantial part of my income. In fact I’d love it to make me a billionaire.

So in your book that's wrong too and Martin should hand it all out to the members? Are you saying Martin is "greedy and exploitative"?

"Are you saying Martin is greedy and exploitative?". I think this question is a little unfortunate as it's unnecessary to ask this question, given my previous comment,

"There's no reason why people can't set something up without expecting a return, it's greedy and exploitative to do otherwise anyway. Did Martin create this site to make a profit?..... At the beginning did he invest any of his own capital?"

which implies that I beleive Martin's main intention when he created this site wasn't financial gain but rather to aid the financial situation of others. I think this is the main differential and remains.

I accept that in giving rebates, cashback sites operate to reduce the cost of purchases for consumers and I'm grateful of this, however I believe strongly that attempts to attract new users and the consequent growth of these sites is primarily fueled by profit seeking interests of the administrators which is embodied in the nature of their methods of referral ie- spamming forums with deceptively attractive, difficult to attain referral bonuses, designed to generate a maximum return for the site and a minimal return for the users.

Site owner:

richard@Rpoints (formerly "RY")


Administrator:

Garrett@Rpoints (formerly "G>" ... infact, I still am to my friends )


Moderators:

arbster@Rpoints (formerly "arbster")

I believe the first person works fulltime on the site.

I know the second person works fulltime in a financial related job as I spoken to him about this on msn.

I also know, from forum posts that the moderator above recieves no income beyond income derived from referral bonuses. I therefore made the presumption that the same was the case for all the other moderators. It's a shame figures on revenue are not available as such figures would alay my concerns, put few sites are very forthcoming. I'd rather not spend £2 to get the information from companieshouse but if necessary I will. To be honest I'm more interested in the profits of greasypalm. I've always admired the community element that rpoints embraces and so I've always favoured it other other sites, however I'm still perturbed by its interest to profit heavily from the expansion of its site which is embodied in the nature of its referral bonuses and the occasional 50% but often 30% commision.

I suppose you'd be happy to pay 50% commision to an estate agent next time you sell your house?

50% of what - the sale price of the house? If so, what an absurd statement.

The 50% return is greedy. The cashback site is supposed to save people money, it's not supposed to markedly bolster the profits of the cashback organisation. May I ask to what aim? It's refreshing that sites like quidco have appeared that will clearly act seemlessly as a bridge between the retailer and the customer.

A good example of the paradoxical nature of cashback site methodology is the way these sites claim to work hard to secure higher rebates from retailers than competing sites, yet often take a substantial portion ie-30-50% of the money given to them by the retailer.

Indeed as you indicate, the success of quidco will serve to demonstrate whether our opposing claims are true.

To quote quidco though,

Oh and as for profits, well we're going to be losing our time for a few months until we start paying out payments but even then the model is not set up to get rich but only to pay for our time. As I said in the one thread we only need a small fraction of what the other sites make to employ ourselves

So for the first few months it appears quidco have ascertained that all they will lose is time. As anybody who's self employed will know, you're required to put alot of time and effort into a business before you even think you'll make a profit. Quidco is no different in this regard, infact from the above it appears to be a little easier and straightforward than most businesses.