UK Consumers Using Discount Vouchers In Search For Lowest Prices

With living costs on the increase, and government measures in place to tackle the deficit, UK consumers are always looking out for new ways to save money and are perhaps more aware than ever of how discount vouchers can reduce the cost of buying online. Nick Gandy, a regular user of discounts and owner of www.latestdiscountvouchers.co.uk, is aware of this trend and has provided codes and offers on his website since 2005.

"Consumers want access to lower prices and the use of discount voucher websites forms a vital part of the online search", says Gandy. With an increasing number of discounts, offers, and stores available across discount voucher websites, they have become brands in their own right with consumers visiting these discount websites directly in a search for the latest offers, as a response to a free newsletter they've received, or via a social media campaign.

If you don't already use discount vouchers then you could easily be paying more online than you need to, but be sure to shop around a little because discount codes don't always provide you with the lowest prices as some websites don't have the functionality to be able to use voucher codes yet can still provide competitive deals. You also need to be aware that, when shopping online, the cheapest price may not always be the best option and you should take into consideration the reputation of the website involved, as well as other factors such as delivery time and stock availability.

Within online shopping recently there's been an increase in the number of discount vouchers available that are valid on top of sale prices. Perhaps this type of approach could even be dubbed the "super code", given the added level of discounting it has the potential to represent?

As an example of this, Debenhams.com ran one such super code recently for 2 days, giving an extra 10% discount on top of the "up to 70% off" that was already available as part of their Blue Cross sale. This effectively provided all Debenhams.com users, that knew of the code, with a maximum discount of 73% (a £100 product, reduced to £30, could have been purchased for £27 with the 10% code).

No matter what your own shopping habits are, and what you think of discount vouchers, the presence of the code boxes within online checkouts doesn't appear to be going away anytime soon so you need to be aware of the availability of any current codes when buying online.

If there are valid codes available, and you don't use them, you're missing out on savings that could have been available just by making a few extra clicks.