Top Web retailers offered more coupons, rebates in 2008
January 7, 2009
Internet Retailer: Perhaps in anticipation of less than jolly holiday sales, 21 percent of the top 500 e-retailers added coupons and rebates in 2008, according to data published in Internet Retailer's 2009 Guide to Retail Web Site Design & Usability. Of the top 500 retailers, 335 said they deployed coupons and rebates in 2008, up from 278 in 2007.
The addition of coupons and rebates reflects a growing trend among Web retailers focusing on ways to stand out among competitors in a tight economic period, said Betsy Emery, chief executive at Tellus, a Cincinnati-based retail Web site design and planning company. "Coupons and rebates are good examples of the trend toward giving consumers a very concrete feeling of measurable value in offers being made," she said. "Retailers are testing physical and virtual coupons. It's almost like a multivariate testing approach to see which form works best."