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Since the pre-Internet days, businesses had used coupons as a marketing tool to drive sales and create customer loyalty. Consumers enjoyed savings to their purchases by using cut-out coupons from newspaper and/or magazines. With the advent of the Internet and e-commerce explosion, shopping online had become a way of life for many people, and the use of coupons had shifted online too!

Who doesn’t love a good deal, whether you are shopping online or offline? The idea of coupons has always been a love/hate relationship for many consumers. In the past, you needed to find them in newspapers, magazines, etc., cut them out in order to use them. As we do not enjoy the power of web search at our finger tips back then, this “search-cut-use” process often took up more time than it was worth.

But now that we live in a digital world, using online coupons is as simple as typing in a code while checking out of your favorite online retailer. Most of the e-commerce portals have ongoing discounts going at their sites, and apart from these there are sites exclusively meant for distribution of online discount coupons. Sites like UltimateCoupons.com offer tons of great online coupons for hundreds of online merchants to help you get free shipping or dollars off your regular purchases.

Besides being your gateway to online savings, UltimateCoupons is running a contest sponsored by their official blog EverybodyLovesCoupons, where a lucky winner stands to win a brand new set of Nintendo Wii, complete with a Mario Party 8 game! To enter, just write a post about online coupons on your blog (like this post) by October 31, 2007 at 11:59pm ET and send your post URL to andrew@ultimatecoupons.com along with the post title.

Let me wrap this post up by offering a few tips I usually practice when shopping online with coupon codes:

• Always check that your coupon code is still valid and make sure your discount/coupon is reflected in your order total before you hit that “Buy Now” button. The retailer will have no sympathy for you if you forget to enter the coupon code or fail to realize that the code you entered has already expired. There is nothing worse than paying full price when you don’t have to.

• One reason that prevents people from buying stuff online is the fear of disclosing their credit card info online. To alleviate your fears, always look for a little locked padlock (often yellow) at the bottom of your browser window. Secondly, always verify that the url (web address) at checkout changes from http:// to https://. These two security checks verify the site has gone through the appropriate measures to ensure their site is SSL Secured and is safe to enter your credit card information.

• Always print out your confirmation receipt after checkout for your records just in case any problems arise with your order.

Follow the advices I have given in this article, and be assured of a pleasant online shopping experience. Once you start using online coupons, you will never go back to paying full price!