Cash back websites are a relatively new thing to the Internet, although they have been around for some time in different guises. Now we know them as sites though which you can do all your regular online shopping activities and earn money back.
The draw back with cash back sites, is you do have to spend money most of the time to receive anything back, which means they are not a suitable way to make any large amounts of money. And a lot of the time they can take up to three months to get the merchant site to transfer the money across to be paid to you.
However, what they do offer simply out weighs the bad points by far. What is your favourite online store? I have a fashion store that offers alternative clothing which I think is great, this store occasionally send me money off vouchers via email, and I will sometimes take them up on the offer. The best part is going to the cash back site, to which I am signed up and finding out if this merchant is listed. The particular merchant this time was listed and offered a 5% cash back rate. This is excellent as I could use the money off voucher in conjunction with the 5% cash back, making it well worth the time and effort of using this service.
Some cash back sites will offer you more than the basic “spend and the merchant will offer you money back”. A lot of them have offers, which include things like free trials, or sign up to this new service for free or even complete a survey and get money back. Which means you (the consumer) don't actually have to pay for anything and you receive money in return for your time.
Many people would consider this along the same lines as the review sites which pay you for a good review. However, often with review sites you have to accumulate enough money to request a payment, and in some cases this may take years. With a cash back site, as soon as the site has the money you receive the payment immediately by which ever payment method you have chose.
So to recap, by using a cash back site you can earn money through your normal online shopping transactions as well as by completing offers and surveys on the site. And you get paid as soon as the site has receive the funds from the merchant. It's a nice way to earn a little extra money, with very little extra work.
