Shopaholic Goes Online

Of late, I notice there are lot of websites that offer discounted gifts certificates at a real steal price to netizens. You might wonder, how did I know of such site?  Well, the best source is always your FB newsfeed, the best place to get updated about almost everything intown. Being a very nice person, herewith, I will share with you the link on how to go to one of my frequent discounted gifts certificate's sites, Groupon Malaysia, and share with you on how to use it. 

[Step1: The Homepage]

Go to Groupon Malaysia by click your mouse here. Your browser will bring you Groupon Malaysia homepage. Once in the page, you can just find "Today's Deal" tab, or you can just scroll down until you found "Today's Deals" lists. Basically, the page is showing the what are the current deals available in groupon now in 3 categories; recommended deals, expiring soon deals and available now deals. Using these category, leisurely scroll down and find something that might interest you.

Fig. 1 Groupon Malaysia website

[Step2: The Detail Explanation Page]

Says now, you found what you like, but wants to know more about the offer. Just click on the offer title and your browser will bring you to the page where there is a detail explanation about the product/services offered. In this example, say so I am interested in Tony Roma's beef ribs discounted gift voucher. I hover my mouse on the title and click on it, then my browser open below page for me.

Fig2. The deal detail explanation page

[Step3: Time Left to Buy]

Besides the information of price and how much value your are saving, there is also this intriguing counter clocking the time on the light green background below. Now this is the exciting part of shopping with this site.  The deal is only offered with the price shown for a limited period only and a certain amount of buyer is set to unlock the deal. Meaning, even if I bought the deal, if the minimum buyer set is not met within the period has been set, I won't get to eat Tony Roma's beef rib at RM38 after all. To ensure this won't happen, I have to promote it via tweeter or facebook to get enough people buying the same voucher. If still nobody buy it, and the deal expired, that Groupon will refund your money within 4 weeks.

Fig3. Example of deals that yet fulfill minimum buyer

Fig4. Example of refund notice from Groupon

[Step4: Register as member]

You need to register as member in order to be able to buy the vouchers. Simply click on the Register button on top left of the homepage, refer to Fig1 mentioned above, put in your email address, and fill-in a few questions as per screenshot below. Once fill-up, then you'll be able to proceed with your purchase transaction. Or, if you have an FB account, then you can use your FB id to login. But note that, your activities will be publish in your newsfeed and known to all your friends.

Fig5. To register you need to supply above info

 [Step5: Buy Voucher]

Click on the "Buy" button shown in Fig2 and fill in the questions asked. And lastly choose your payment method. I usually use bank transfer rather than credit card.

Fig 6. Fill in the qty, location to redeem teh voucher and choose payment method.

Fig 7. Choices of payment method

Once you chose your payment method, in my example here, I chose via Maybank2u. The browser will redirect you to a secured payment page. Once click on "Pay by Maybank2U" button,

Fig 8. Payment confirmation

Fig 9. Maybank2U secured login page via online payment gateway, mobile88.com

[Step6: Print the voucher]

Once payment made. You will get an email confirmation from Groupon to confirm your voucher purchase transaction. This is just a confirmation email, and not the voucher yet. The voucher will only be available after the time in figure 3 runs out. Then, Groupon will sent out another email to tell you that your voucher is ready to be printed. So, you have to login again into Groupon website, go to "MyAccount", select "My Groupon" tab, and your available to be printed voucher will be listed here.

Fig 10. Vouchers under my account, both used and not yet redeem

Now, all you need to do is print out the voucher and redeem it at the shop. Simple & interesting! And the most important thing is you buy the product/services cheaper that normal market price.

The pros

1. Great for people who has lowest possibilities to stumble upon interesting product and with discounted price.
2. No hassle in looking for parking and face traffic jam.
3. Can virtually window shopping anytime anywhere.
4. Long redeem period. You can buy now and redeem later at your own time as long as it is within the redemption period.

The cons

1. Possibility that some of deals offer are not genuine. They markup from normal price and give discount only to have it back to original price. 
2. Need to really know what you are buying by doing some research and read people review/comments on the comments slot to avoid buying con voucher.
3. Since it is connected to Facebook, all your browsing & purchasing activity might get posted in your friends newsfeed. 
4. Push mail from groupon hogs your email account. Nuisance to go delete them. 
5. The voucher is to be printed in order to present to the shop upon redemption. It would be more environmental friendly if the voucher does not need to be printed, and just flash to the shop operator instead.

There are a few other website that's offering the same type of business. And here are to names a few:

And lastly the are websites that combine all vouchers from all sites I mentions above and more. You can check it out here: