Small Business Technology

How Does Ebates Make Money Online?

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What is Ebates?

Ebates is a free to use online cash back shopping site. They have partnered up with many common and not so common online retailers to offer deals to bargain-hunting customers. The site came about during the dot-com boom and was one of the few to survive and profit. Some of the retailers also offer easy cash back options for in-person shopping as well as online shopping. The cash back rebate is awarded to customers each quarter and can come in the form of a physical mailed check or it can be sent to a Paypal account. This is a great opportunity for people that regularly shop online and if you purchase business items you receive a return on items that will end up being written off, a double win for many entrepreneurs.

How does Ebates make money

Ebates is able to make money through the partnerships it cultivates and retains with retailers and customers. Basically, it works like this; they go to a retailer touting a large customer base for their particular product. Because they can bring the company many customers the retailer is inclined to give Ebates a commission for business driven to their online sites and brick and mortar establishments. Then Ebates turns around and shares this with the customer. They need to have many customers so that they can get better deals with retailers. The more customers, the better deals, etc the way they make money is through a positive feedback loop involving both of these parties.

Recent developments

Ebates recently announced Travel Thursdays, where shoppers can save big on travel-related purchases. On Thursday a user can log on and save on purchases like hotels, airfare, cruises, rental cars and the like. The site has said that people can save up to 50% off of many of these items. The largest selection is in hotel reservations, they have said that they will be offering discounts to over 280,000 hotels all over the world. They plan to have promotions each week, these will include themes like Disney, the beach, and Europe. Travel Thursdays started on Feb 22, 2018.

Fun fact

The company was actually founded by two deputy district attorneys in Menlo Park, California. The pair did very little marketing or advertising and were getting 100,000 site hits the very first week after launching. It was more or less an instant success.


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Just another aspiring small business owner and amateur photographer blogging in an attempt to break down personal finance lingo.

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