| URL | www.quidco.com |
|---|---|
| Type of site | Cashback website |
| Registration | Required |
| Launched | May 2005 |
Quidco is a cashback website based in the UK, with offices in Sheffield and London. The site takes the commission (termed 'cashback') usually paid by retailers to third-party referrers and passes it on to Quidco members, apart from the first £5 which is retained each year in order to fund the running of Quidco.[1]
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Paul and Jennifer Nikkel co-founded Quidco whilst studying at the University of Sheffield in 2005 as a way of saving students money as they shopped online. The website launched in Sheffield in May 2005, with the London office opening in 2007. By 2009, Quidco had 700,000 members.[2] As of October 2011 Quidco had 1.6 million members. The company's accounts to 31/7/2010 showed a pre-tax profit of £943,413 on a turnover of £32,077,869 [3]
Retailers have a certain marketing budget that they are prepared to spend to attract a sale; Quidco cashback is essentially the retailer paying that budget as cashback to the customer. John Stevens in the Observer explains:
The idea of cashback sites is relatively simple. You register with one of the many sites out there and when you buy online you visit the same retailers as usual, but via a link on your chosen cashback site. When you make a purchase, the retailer pays a commission to your cashback site, who in turn gives you a cut of the money.[4]
Quidco uses affiliate networks in order to track transactions with retailers and to allot the cashback to the correct Quidco member. Logged-in Quidco members get cashback on their purchases when they click from Quidco to a retailer's site and carry out a transaction; the amount of cashback available can either be a fixed sum or a percentage of the order value. In June 2011, Which? published an article claiming that debt-management companies were targeting Quidco customers.[5]
The Egg Cash Back Store was launched in June 2010 by Egg Banking and Quidco, offering Egg Card holders membership of a co-branded Quidco website.
The bank claims the card gives a typical 10% cashback at more than 1,500 retailers via its Egg Cash Back Superstore. The store is run by Quidco, one of a proliferation of websites that has sprung up over the past few years offering people cashback deals when they spend with selected retailers.[6]
Quidco's iPhone app was released on the 1st of June 2011 in the iTunes Store.[7] The app offers cashback, voucher code and a UK first of paying individuals to 'check-in' to retailer outlets and received 'Consumer app of the week' from the Guardian and 'App of the day' from Pocketlint.com.[8] [9]
Quidco members can receive cashback either through a BACS transfer into their bank account or via PayPal. Quidco issues payments twice a month; payments are sent on the first working days following the 1st and 15th day of the month.[10] The minimum payment amount is £1.01; if the amount of received cashback is less than this, the payment will roll over until the next payment date where the due amount is £1.01 or greater.
The payment time for cashback can vary from retailer to retailer, depending on the speed at which they process and validate transactions and send on payments.