The Coupon Craze

Have you ever at a loss of what or where to eat this weekend outing or family gathering? It happened many times to me that I am getting sick of eating the same old food or place every time.

So the best thing that ever happen is the coupon craze, that started in the States (where else but have to be them), had swept across to our tiny "red dot" country, Merlionpore. Sorry, I meant "Singapore". It is also the craze in many other countries now.

In case you are still wondering what I am talking about, here's a brief description of what it is all about! Basically, the discount coupon companies (more than a dozens of them as of now) will put out huge discounts (usually from 40% upwards) from certain merchants (eateries, spas, travel etc are the popular ones) on a daily or on every few days basis. You can buy the coupons online and since they are usually available ranging from one to few days before it expires, it can be snapped up pretty fast, especially for those popular, well-known outlets or for those tempting huge discounts!

I am just another end-user just like you, who surfed the net and chanced upon this coupon thingy. I have to stress that I am not related in anyway to any coupon companies nor to any merchants, which I may be reviewing them in my later post. No direct monetary rewards from them nor benefits. I am writing just to share with whoever care to read. I am only interested to review those outlets, which I find worth mentioning or at least on average grade but always remember that every individual have his/her likings or preferences. So every review will still be subjected to the familiar clause of "One man's meat is another's poison".

How come it works? Well, the power of bulk-buying at play! Basically it is the gathering of buying power at one go to secure huge discounts. Who benefited from all this? All three parties, namely the coupon companies, the merchants and we, the end-users. The coupon companies, or so-called middle-man, collect the commission from the merchants for selling for them. The merchants benefited from the publicity without the need to pay for those expensive, direct advertising medias and also to draw numerous new customers, which otherwise would not have come or even knew that their outlets existed anyway! And finally, we, the end-users save quite a fair bit of money through their generous discounts.

Real or gimmicks? I had my reservations too when I started out but have to say that after trying with no less than 50 coupons from different companies by now, I am very convinced and wished this coupon craze should have come in much earlier :) How more genuine you want it to be? So far, all had proven to be genuine discount and none had failed me... yet. I'm touching wood now...

Nowadays, I do not need to crack my brain of where to eat or whatever. I just snapped up whichever coupons which I see that is worth buying. Neither do I care which company it is from. It does not matters to me as long as it is worth it. As the saying goes, follow the wind blows and save all my headaches and dollars too :)