Money Saving Mom tipped me off to a good online deal this morning: Allergy Superstore is offering $10 off with no minimum purchase required. Shipping is a flat rate fee of $3.99, and you can also get 5% cashback through Ebates. To get in on this deal, click here to go to Ebates and search for “Allergy Superstore”, then click through the “$10 off any order” coupon. If you’re new to Ebates, you will also receive a $5 bonus for signing up – learn more about online rebate programs be reading my article “How I save Money With Online Rebates”. (You can also click through Money Saving Mom’s link to get the deal, but you won’t receive cashback.)

Not only is this a good deal for those who need to buy gluten-free foods or hypoallergenic products, but for those without allergies as well. I bought one Almay Intense i-Color eyeliner pencil and a Thai Kitchen Rice Noodle Bowl and paid $3.99 total. Your total can be under $10 and it will just deduct the purchase amount – in this instance, I bought $9.28 in merchandise, which is what the coupon deducted. I’m not sure if I will receive the 5% cashback since I only paid for shipping, but I’ll be curious to find out. This was a worthwhile deal for me, because I am particular about my eyeliner – I stocked up on this Almay eyeliner about 2 years ago when there was a sale at Rite Aid, and as luck would have it, I was down to my last pencil when I found this deal. It retails for $7, so getting one eyeliner plus a meal for $3.99 was a fun deal for me!

My Famous Footwear order has arrived – a pair of cute slippers & a reusable bag for .98 cents shipped. Not too shabby, especially since I have been wanting to pick up a new pair of slippers. They are pretty small – the only size they had left was “Medium”, and I had no idea what shoe size that equated to – but I can still squeeze my feet into them, so it’s all good!

Readers, did you order anything from Famous Footwear with the $10 off $10 coupon? What did you get?

Facebook users, click here to read Money Saving Mom’s post to learn how you can easily get a coupon good for $10 off a $10 or higher purchase at FamousFootwear.com, along with free shipping, just for “Liking” their Facebook page. This promotion appears to be well thought-out, so I think it’s worth looking into – I ordered a pair of pink polka dot slippers and a reusable shopping bag and paid .98 cents total. This offer is good for 48 hours only.

Well, the last MedCo deal was a flop, but there were no issues with the $10 off promo. My order arrived yesterday – three 20-count boxes of Tampax for $2.96 shipped.

One thing I’ve learned about online promotions is that they can be hit or miss. I’ve gotten some fab deals – like 8 hamburgers for $1.98, cheap stuff at Victoria’s Secret, $3 coffee and .38 cent Snuggle, an inexpensive coat, and so on. But not every deal is a winner – my recent Barrie Pace order was cancelled and they have not returned my email asking why; my photo stamps order was also cancelled, because the image I uploaded – my Super Coupon Girl button – was deemed “inappropriate”! (But as far as I know, everyone else got their stamp orders – Snapfish just didn’t like my logo.)

The reason for online deals being patchy is because the ad teams of many companies don’t understand how to create campaigns for an online audience. There have been too many instances where I’ve seen a legitimate company advertise a coupon code on their website (“$10 off ANY purchase! No minimum!”) – and naturally, since it’s a good deal, news spreads quickly and the company is deluged with offers. The company then panics and cancels all the orders. It’s an unfortunate scenario, because it should be entirely obvious that news of your good discount will spread like wildfire – that’s the point! Your ad campaign has succeeded! – and if you don’t establish a minimum purchase requirement for your $10 coupon, you can’t be shocked when a consumer uses it on a $10 item. Ultimately, the companies suffer because of the negative press – and resulting unhappy customers – when orders get cancelled like this. PR teams will eventually catch up to the new medium and learn how to craft appropriate offers for an online audience, but for now, we’re in the Wild Wild West of online deals.

That being said, I have never been scammed or lost any money because of online deals. I’ve had orders get cancelled, but all I’ve lost is a little bit of time placing the order. For me, it’s worth the speculation to take advantage of legitimate online coupon codes – if the corporation decides to cancel a valid offer because of their ill-thought-out marketing, that’s their prerogative, but other companies are savvier and anticipate the response their coupon codes will receive. And this has resulted in many good deals for me!

Bearing all that in mind, I wanted to let you know about this deal for $10 off at MedCo. Many readers over at Money Saving Mom have reported that their orders have already shipped, so I am cautiously enthusiastic. New customers can use coupon code MHS10 at MedCo to receive $10 off any purchase, and the company also offers .99 cent shipping. I ordered 3 boxes of Tampax (Something we always need to buy – right, ladies?!) and paid $2.96. Just FYI, I could not get the second coupon code that she posted, TENOFF, to work. I’ll keep you posted on what happens with my order!

Readers: What was the best deal you ever got online? Which was the most disappointing?

Barrie Pace is going out of business and has marked most of their stock down by 50-75%, and they are also offering an additional 80% off by using promo code FINAL80 at checkout. After these discounts, many of their items are priced between $5 and $10 – it’s no .50 cent cocktail dress, but still a good deal nonetheless, especially since they carry a lot of formal wear. If you need an outfit for a wedding or other special event, you should definitely check it out.

I got this lace-trimmed floral dress and this cowlneck jersey dress for a total of $26.10, which includes shipping. According the website, the cost for both of these dresses before markdowns and promo code was $316(!!!).

I’m guessing these clothes will get snatched up quickly, so if you’re interested, I would place an order soon – just bear in mind, all sales are final since they are going out of business.

Thanks, Money Saving Mom!

Last month I ordered a Victoria’s Secret hoodie and received a “Secret Rewards Card” with my order. This card is valid through the end of April, so if you also received one during this sale, be sure to use it soon! Each card is worth a minimum of $10, as mine was, but some are worth up to $500. Here’s how you can find out what’s on yours – add an item to your shopping cart and proceed to checkout. On the last page prior to placing the order, you will be able to enter in your card number and check the balance. If you have more than $10 on your card, you can keep shopping and add more items. I ended up buying 4 pairs of underwear on clearance that came to $11.96. Shipping is $5.99, so my total after Rewards Card was $7.95. This works out to $1.98 per pair, which is comparable to Ross prices; so all in all, a decent sale on a practical item. I also shopped through Ebates, although I had to reboot my computer halfway through my purchase and I forgot to re-open the tracking ticket – whoops! – so it probably won’t register the cashback for this purchase.

Custom photo stamps that I ordered last year through a similar offer

With all this talk about coupon trading, I thought this was a good deal to share – you can end up using a lot of stamps doing trades, so what better way to maximize your saving than by getting a discount on postage! Click here to read a post on Money Saving Mom explaining how you can get inexpensive custom photo stamps today only through Snapfish. To make this deal even better, use Ebates or ShopAtHome (If you’re not familiar with them, check out my article about online rebates to learn more), as they both offer 7.5% cashback on Snapfish orders. What I did was add the $10 credit and save the photo stamps to my shopping cart, and then closed the window and loaded up ShopAtHome. I paid 19.96 total for 3 sheets of 20 first-class stamps – this includes shipping – and I will get $1.49 back through ShopAtHome, which will make the final cost per stamp around .30 cents. That’s a .14 cents savings per stamp! ETA: Money Saving Mom says that she is not sure if this coupon code can be combined with cashback from ShopAtHome. But even if that is the case, the stamps are still only .33 cents each!
This is a great way to save on a necessary practical item, plus you get to have the fun of putting your own photo on it.

Here’s my $14.99 hoodie and “Secret Rewards Card” from the last Victoria’s Secret promotion. This hoodie is exactly what I was looking for, so I’m very happy with it. I won’t know the value of my rewards card until I try shopping with it in April, so I’ll let you know what happens!

Did you order anything during this promo? If so, what did you get?