21 November 2010

New Features! Daily Deals, Coupons, Book Swap!

Good Afternoon Swaggernauts!

How's your Saturday goin? Mine's been pretty Mega so far! My first and second wins were for 12! I got 34 swagbucks for videos from Gambit, TrialPay, and gWallet. Tried for and got 1 SBTV win so far. Yesterday, I won Quads, meaning I got four search wins, 3 of which were for 10.

So much more Mega than Friday's Mega Swag Bucks Day. I wonder if something happened that nerfed the win algorithm on Friday, and they've tweaked it this weekend to compensate. Or, maybe this is a tweaked win pattern to celebrate Thanksgiving week. Or to keep the air of excitement flowing until they let people in to the closed beta for Games? The world may never know! But I'm pleased with it *wink*

Speaking of being pleased, I gotta say that I Love two out of three of the new features I'm going to talk about today, Coupons and Book Swap trade in. The third, Daily Deals, is kind of a "Meh", rating. Nothing wrong with it, just not really new or interesting.

All three of the new features can be found on the Swag Bucks home page or from the Earn button on the toolbar at the top of any swagbucks page. 



You can also find Coupons and Trade In from your browser toolbar but Daily Deals is not there yet. I'm sure they will add it soon.



I highlighted The Swidget there because it's a quick way to get code to post your swidget- but it's not, as I'd hoped, a quick access to the swidget to check it for Swag Codes. Ah well!

Let's start with Daily Deals. I like to eat my least favorite part of a meal first :P

There's nothing wrong with Daily Deals. As I said up top, it's just not new or terribly interesting. It's just TrialPay's listing of Daily Deals in a slightly different format. It's a way to access them without having to go to the special offers page. It does give you more options than you get from TrialPay's "Local Deals" tab, but it's basically just a filter that leaves only TrialPay's Groupon, Mertado, and Living Social deals.



So I guess I give this one a "Meh" rating.


Hey, on the bright side, TrialPay has been one of the few offer walls that credits consistently without a battle, for me anyway. So, that's a good thing!

The other half of the Two New Ways To Save & Earn addition is Coupons.


There's the coupons tab, and a recipes tab. You can browse & print recipes and get ideas for which coupons to print!




On the coupons page, there is a left sidebar with a variety of filter options such as by Zip Code, by Category, or by Brand.


The first thing I looked for was a Whisk coupon. I got one in the mail along with a free sample, $1.00 off with no size restrictions. I thought if I could get another one of those, and if it also had no size restrictions, I could go to WalMart and either get some travel sizes if they have any, or get two of the smallest size they Do have. That makes the $1.00 off stretch farther.


I found what I was looking for. Seems to be the same as the coupon I got in the mail. Just check the CLIP button, and keep searching!

At this point I decided to browse the Publix weekly ad for Buy One Get One Free offers I could match with coupons for bigger savings this payday.


The first time you visit it asks you for your zip code to find stores and deals in your area.


 I chose the Buy One Get One Free filter and found this goodie:


Sounded good, I wonder if I can find a coupon on swagbucks?


Save 50 cents of any one Betty Crocker box muffin mix or Fiber One box muffin mix. The BOGO above is a box of the Premium muffin mix. I'm sure that counts! Between the BOGO and the coupon, instead of paying $5.18 for two, I will only pay $2.09 :D  I like that. Basically a buck a box.

I wrapped up this coupon clipping trip with another Publix deal.


Ziploc containers, 2 for $5.00. I knew I'd seen a coupon for Ziploc containers somewhere over there...


Sweet! Save $1.50 on any Two Ziploc containers. That will bring the price for two down to $3.50! Ok, I need more of those... why do the lids always disappear??


At the top left under the tabs you will see Coupon Carrier. That's like your printing cart. I have 3 coupons here for a total savings of $3.00. When I redeem them, (and the swagbucks credit,) that will be 30 swagbucks earned for $3.00 saved. PRETTY NEAT!!

Just press the Print Coupons button on the right. The first time you print, you will have to install a coupon printer. It's a quick install with no viruses or adware.

Once it's installed, you don't have to go through that step again. You will, however, be presented with a special offer. You DO NOT have to do this offer. You can skip it.


Once you've passed this step, your coupons are sent to the printer. I don't know how yours will work, different printers different software etc. For me, my print preview opens and I get to select the layout.



The coupon tells the vendor not to accept the coupon without a dot scan bar code beneath the expiration date, and to verify the coupon through veri-fi.com. In the bottom right, beside the other bar codes, are any consumer instructions. This one says no other coupon may be used with this coupon. The item is on BOGO though, so no worries!

I really, Really REALLY like the idea of saving money AND earning swagbucks. I know a lot of swaggernauts out there already clip coupons. Some have turned it into a fine art! I'm betting you folks will be just as excited about this as I am.

There is a limit to the number of coupons you can print each month. I asked on the Swagbucks Facebook page when I read one lady saying she'd already hit her limit on the first day, but I didn't receive a reply. I don't know what the limit is, my apologies.

I definately give this new feature...

Two Thumbs Up!

 There's one last new feature I want to cover today, then I'm outta here!

On Thursday, Nov 18th, The Swag Gal let us in on yet another way to earn swagbucks.


Now you can look around your house for old books, search for them using Swagbucks Book Swap, and if your books are listed / accepted, find out what your swagbucks payment will be for each book, depending on it's condition and printing version. When you are done selecting books to trade in, you are able to print a FedEx shipping label. Pack the books securely, put the label on the box, and drop it at your local FedEx center.


Just choose Trade In from the homepage or toolbar, then pick Books.




You'll be taken to the search screen, where you can enter single or multiple IBDNs, title, author, or keyword inquiries.

I looked up the first book that came to mind, one I got from my sister-in-laws garage sale items that didn't sell. Natan Sharansky's Fear No Evil. I'm reading it right now but we've got so many books without bookshelf space, we Need to get rid of some of them. First I searched by author name, Sharansky.


The first thing I noticed was the title of my book was available to sell. Then I noticed there were three pages of results for the author. Then I noticed only one book on the list seemed to be acceptable for sale. I decided I needed to check the ISBN, as the cover didn't look the same. So I searched by ISBN, but lo and behold, they were not buying my version of the book.



However let's go back and look up at that one it DID find.


There is a drop down menu that lists version choices. U.S. Edition, International, Annotated, and Instructors Editions. Each one comes with a different Swag Selling Price. Had this been the right version, and a U.S. Edition, I would have made 80 swagbucks on it.

There is a little question mark bubble next to the dropdown which explains how to determine what version you are trying to sell.

I haven't looked for any more books yet, but I will be very soon. I definately give this feature an EASY


Easy swagbucks, Free shipping, house decluttering! What's NOT to love? 

That wraps it up for today. Leave me some feedback, tell me what YOU think of these new features!

If anyone reading this is not yet a member of Swagbucks, but wants to get on the swagtrain and start earning the free loot, there's no time like the present! Just go to the swidget , up top on the right there, press the Sign Up button on the bottom right. Fill out a short form, confirm your email, and get 30 swagbucks to get you rolling! Then come back here and start with October's second blog post, "Beginner Tips for Swagsurfing!", for tips on how to get started! 




Not sure yet what tomorrow's SwagMelt will be about but I'm sure I can dig up something good for you! Until then, Swag Friends,


HAPPY SWAGSURFING!!


1 comment:

  1. I think the printing limit refers to how many times you can print one coupon -which is twice.

    ReplyDelete

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