Guide: Get a discount from EVERY online purchase - Flubit Review

Jew · 29 September 2012 at 6:27PM

Some serious money saving here:

I've been using a UK company called Flubit for the last few online purchases I've made, and they managed to get me 10-30% discounts from prices I found online and sent to them.

All of the items arrived on time and there are no hidden costs (paid safely with PayPal).

Here's how you do it:

1. Find something you wanna buy on any site, copy the URL link

2. Go to http://www.flubit.com

3. Paste that URL in on their site, and wait

4. In a few hours, they email you with a custom 10-20% discount that you can buy (or not) by following the link to their website

5. Pay with PayPal

I purchased my stuff immediately on all occasions, and the items arrived with the usual UK shipping times: 2-4 days.

How does it work? I think they have affiliate schemes. (I initially signed up for their services last year — it was very different then back then, you would get deals based on how many other people buy it. They took their site down and now relaunched and I was emailed. No more group-buying from what I can tell, but last time the discounts were only 8-12%. Now it's way more.)

All I care is that for any online purchase I've gotten a good discount. I've bought jeans, an iPhone case, ski jacket, books, Apple TV, etc. — got discounts between 10-25%, weird decimals like 23.45%.

Thinking also about getting my TV there. (I've been thinking of starting to do my Christmas shopping now.)

As for negatives, nothing major yet. Haven't contacted customer support, so can't say. But one thing, while the site is very easy to use on my PC (cool design), however, on my iPhone, it takes me to a screen that says they're still making their mobile site:

But it's misleading, because if you scroll down and click the blue link then it takes you to the normal site and that works pretty well:

Don't know if you can buy, but I was able to check my account and order status. It's a bit weird when zooming — maybe it's because I'm on iOS 6:

Has anyone else used it?

I find that the only thing that don't seem to work are eBay listings — but I think it also said 'coming soon' when I tried (don't quote me on that one).

spicyhotone · 1 October 2012 at 8:20AM

I've been using it for the past week, and got great deals on all the items I've entered (7 so far, all in the 10-20% discount range you mentioned).

Customer support (when I needed to change a delivery address) was fast and efficient. Delivery was prompt.

How do they work? I suspect what they're doing is using crowd-sourcing to find the lowest priced site for common items. I like to think I'm pretty good at shopping around and finding the lowest prices on the internet - but they always beat the prices I found by a good margin. Even more surprisingly, when the items arrived I saw they were almost all from the suppliers I had told them about. One item (a fairly expensive tent) even had the invoice included from the supplying company (ie. not flubit), and was for exactly the amount I had specified as the cost when I submitted the request (ie. not the discounted price fluibit quoted me).

From that evidence, I think that flubit are subsidising the discount out of their own pockets (or rather the pockets of those who have invested start-up funds in the company), in order to attract new customers, and get a good database of which sites provide the best prices for a range of items.

I can't believe they can sustain this level of discount for very long - therefore I'd suggest everyone get in quick and make the most of it whilst it lasts!

Cheers

Paul.

Jew · 24 November 2012 at 2:20PM

As an update, have been buying more stuff from them (Christmas gifts) and all has been very cheap

Saves me time from having to go shopping on the high street...

deniskov · 12 February 2013 at 5:34PM

This was the worst online shopping experience I’ve had in my life time. I bought a camera (almost 1,200 British Pounds) off Flubit in January with their promise to deliver it by 4th of February at the latest. The camera was needed for shooting a project abroad and it was critical for me to get it in time for my trip. When I did not receive the item by the latest deadline, I started chasing them. A lady at Fireworks Merchant Limited was trying her best to chase their supplier Value Basket but the latter kept lying to her and she kept passing that false information onto me. During almost 10 days of daily email exchanges I was told several times that the item had been dispatched, then I would be told that in fact it was a lie and it would be dispatched next day. After eight days of this battle (which was two days before my planned trip) I sent an official claim for refund and compensation and I am now awaiting Flubit’s response to that. So, two days before the trip, I have no camera and no money to get a new one. I am awaiting for the refund but I am sure it won’t arrive in time (if it will at all). If I were you I would think twice and pay a little bit more but have a guarantee that you get your item. Flubit again? Not in my life time!

Poq · 12 February 2013 at 5:53PM

deniskov wrote: »

This was the worst online shopping experience I’ve had in my life time. I bought a camera (almost 1,200 British Pounds) off Flubit in January with their promise to deliver it by 4th of February at the latest. The camera was needed for shooting a project abroad and it was critical for me to get it in time for my trip. When I did not receive the item by the latest deadline, I started chasing them. A lady at Fireworks Merchant Limited was trying her best to chase their supplier Value Basket but the latter kept lying to her and she kept passing that false information onto me. During almost 10 days of daily email exchanges I was told several times that the item had been dispatched, then I would be told that in fact it was a lie and it would be dispatched next day. After eight days of this battle (which was two days before my planned trip) I sent an official claim for refund and compensation and I am now awaiting Flubit’s response to that. So, two days before the trip, I have no camera and no money to get a new one. I am awaiting for the refund but I am sure it won’t arrive in time (if it will at all). If I were you I would think twice and pay a little bit more but have a guarantee that you get your item. Flubit again? Not in my life time!

Sounds like a crappy experience. But not really their fault if the seller was a douche and lying?

I bought things for Christmas, and out of the half-dozen, only one arrived a day after Christmas...

deniskov · 12 February 2013 at 8:28PM

I just received a refund and they have offered a compensation which was nice of them.

As for their partners letting them down, this should not be of a customer's concern. They choose their suppliers and they have to be responsible for them before clients. no?

Poq · 25 February 2013 at 2:05PM

I don't know. That's like blaming eBay — especially if they solved the problem for you...?

rabjoshu · 26 March 2013 at 6:35PM

Anyone know how these guys make money?

suited-aces · 26 March 2013 at 8:03PM

Interesting concept. I'm not ready to hop in yet but I'll keep an eye on this. Done a bit of research and found this http://www.startups.co.uk/flubit-bertie-stephens.html apparently they work on commission.

rabjoshu · 26 March 2013 at 8:45PM

Cheers for that.
I've used them a few times at this stage.
They've come back with on average 18% off the lowest listed price on items I would buy anyway.

bunberry · 2 June 2013 at 2:51PM

I've used them to buy a few items and other than the slower delivery (you to wait for them to place an order with the merchant, which usually takes an extra day at least and afaik they don't work weekends), I'm happy with their service. However, there's quite a big variation in discounts offered - for example my OH was offered a discount of around 10% for an item, whereas I was only offered a 5% discount.

If you reject and re-demand for the same item a few times, you may get a slightly better offer eventually, which has happened to me.

It also seems that the more expensive your request is, the less percentage discount you're offered. Makes sense that they'd want to keep a bigger portion for themselves; it's how they make money after all.

Guide: Get a discount from EVERY online purchase - Flubit Review

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