How is ebates still in business?

[duragezic]

Browsing the hot deals and I see there is ebates.com. Looks like another pointclick. That one didn't last and how the hell does ebates.com last with all these other dotcoms gone?

 

[ChrichtonsGirl]

Ebates gives you a very small percentage of cash back on purchases. You don't really click to earn anything - you're paying for it and just getting a little refund. I'm sure Ebates doesn't give you the same percentage they're getting - say jcpenney.com pays them a commission of 4% for each click through that makes a purchase; Ebates offers members a 2% rebate. So they still make 2% to cover their own expenses.

Granted, it's not exactly a plan to get rich, but they're not just giving stuff away like PointClick was doing.

 

[duragezic]

Yeah I guess that works out. When I meant pointclick, I meant the reimbursement though. I forgot all about the clicking stuff but that was dumb anyway I only made like $0.15.

 

[RossMAN]

There's no guarantee that eBates.com will last but they have outlived two of their main competitors PointClick(.)com (still kicking myself in the ass for not joining during the great November 1999 fiasco people were making $1,400 a month for 2-3 months tax free by just clicking a few hours a day, GRR!) and Dash.com which recently went under. The funny thing is one of the smaller sites shoppin.net is still paying out. I surely hope that eBates.com stays afloat because I have hundreds of referrals which earn me free $$$ so even if I make no purchases, every 3 months I receive a check for at least $150 which pays my cell phone.

 

[randomlinh]

heh, damn man, how you get them referrals... all my friends just get me to buy it or something... heh

 

[RossMAN]

heh, damn man, how you get them referrals... all my friends just get me to buy it or something... heh

Waaaaaaaaay back in the day (1999-2000) we were able to SPAM other deal forums so I got about 200 people to sign up using my referral URL. So from the moment they sign up I receive 50% of their eBates bonus from 50% of their referrals bonus, plus one more level down I think. Unfortunately they changed their referral structure a few months ago where you get a flat $5 per referral after they make their first purchase, that's great if your referral makes very few purchases to make it worth your while. But when you have hot-deals-addicts who order a lot the 50% referral = $$$ instead of a piddly $5.

So $150 every 3 months for doing nothing but opening the envelope is pretty nice but eventually eBates will die.