Over the last few years, online shopping has become even more a part of our daily lives.
Did you know that you can actually earn money back through online shopping so that you are saving even more on your purchases. I do this through Rakuten.
If you have not signed up for Rakuten before, sign up through my link and get $30 back when you make a purchase of $30 or more in the first 90 days.
In this post, I’m going to show you exactly how to earn money back through cashback offers online.
How does Rakuten Work?
I get cashback on most of my online purchases and have been using Rakuten for years at this point. I have earned money back including hundreds of dollars thanks to Rakuten.
But before we start you may be wondering who these retailers are? Some of these retailers include Macy’s, Nordstrom, Groupon, Kohl’s, Walmart, Joanns, and Game Stop. There are SO many more retailers that you’ll likely find 90% of the retailers you shop at monthly within the list.
Unfortunately, Amazon is not one of the retailers.
Amazon is, unfortunately, one of the few places that do not support the savings that other retailers offer through Rakuten. But, that doesn’t mean there aren’t other retailers that you can shop at. Part of being money savvy is by searching through multiple websites to find the best price for the item you are looking for. This is especially helpful for larger ticket items.
Rakuten is free to join and free to use.
There are no subscription fees and you will never directly pay Rakuten any money. They have a deal with certain retailers where they earn a commission on your sale (at no extra cost to you) and therefore they give you a portion of this commission.
I’ve been using Rakuten for years and LOVING it
Rakuten Can Get You Free Products
Sometimes, if you strategize correctly you can even get things for FREE like I did when I shared how you can get a free month of a KiwiCo Subscription box for your kids and how to get a huge savings on Creme De La Mer cream
Here is a look at my recent cashback purchases. You can see how much I spent and how much I saved.
Sure, it may not seem like a lot but I use coupon codes on top of this and why not save even just a few dollars?
How to get Started with Rakuten?
Sign up using my link and confirm your e-mail address.
Rakuten Chrome Extension
After that, you can add the Rakuten browser extension to your Chrome bar. If you prefer to not use the Rakuten Chrome extension don’t worry I’ll give you instructions on how to manually get your cashback too.
I prefer to use the extension because otherwise I completely forget about using Rakuten and then always regret it after my purchase.
The Chrome extension makes it a simple process that doesn’t require any extra time from me at all.
Here is how to use Rakuten with the Chrome extension:
Go to the website you want to shop at. You will see a pop-up box that says Rakuten and to Activate the cash back. It also shows you how much cashback you can get.
Press “Activate”.
Once you press the button you will see that Rakuten will temporarily redirect you to the following message.
This confirms that you will be getting cashback while shopping on this site.
Sometimes Rakuten will also search for coupons that you can add on top of the cashback you receive. If you see the following pop-up that says there were coupons found then click the “Apply Coupons” button.
It will then go ahead and test the coupons it found.
See below, it found a coupon that worked. I clicked Return to check out and I completed my order.
You will then see the order reflect on your Rakuten cashback history after a while.
Here is how to get cashback without the extension:
After you sign up using my link and you confirm your account you can then search up the website/store you want to go to on the Rakuten.com site.
You will see how much cashback is offered within that store on this page. As you can see above Sephora is currently giving up to 6% cashback.
Click the “Shop Now” purple button.
It will give you the following message:
You can then shop the site normally and receive points.
Please note that you will have to try out your own coupon codes if you want further savings manually using this method.
How to Save Even More Money
Sometimes retailers offer even deeper savings. Here are some examples, normally Neiman Marcus and Ulta offer 2-3% cashback but when I was creating this post they were offering 15% (NM) and 6% (Ulta) cash back.
Rakuten Review
I am very happy with Rakuten, I have used it for years and figure why not save money through my purchases. I can’t always find coupon codes so it is nice to know that I am still saving money on my purchases.
Rakuten Frequently Asked Questions
How to use Rakuten in store?
The easiest way to use Rakuten is for online shopping but there are certain stores that do work with them for in-store purchases, too. You’ll have to do a bit of research on that one or reach out to their customer service to see if they can give you an updated list of stores.
To use Rakuten in store you will need to add your credit card to your Rakuten “My Wallet” section. Then go to in store cash back and click on the stores to manually link them to your Credit Card purchases.
Is Rakuten free to join?
It is. And it’s totally legit. There are no monthly fees associated with joining or signing up with them and they work with a HUGE list of companies. While it isn’t possible for me to list out all the companies, I am including the ones that I think you’ll love:
- Best Buy
- Target
- Kohls
- Nordstrom
Macy’s - Sephora
- E-bay
- ShopDisney
- Zappos
- Adidas
- Ulta
- Dyson
- See’s Candies
- Bergdorf Goodman
- Old Navy
- Staples
- Neiman Marcus
- Saks 5th Avenue
- Walmart
- Petco
- Petsmart
- H&M
- Best Buy
- Ulta
- Petco
and more
How does Rakuten make money?
The way that Rakuten earns money is they receive a percentage of profit from each sale that they help drive to the other store’s websites. It is like affiliate marketing.
This means that if you buy something online from Target and you use your Rakuten account to do so, Rakuten then gets a percentage of the sale on whatever you purchased. (But don’t worry, this is between Rakuten and the store’s agreement. It doesn’t cost you anything extra at all! You are basically just passing on a part of the sale profit. Rakuten then shares a piece of that profit with you through cashback.)
What was Rakuten Before?
Rakuten was previously called ebates.
Rakuten Returns
Returns are quick and efficient at most retailers. All you need to do is send back the item through your local post office as you normally would. Your purchase through the retailer is still a purchase through the retailer. Rakuten doesn’t take over the purchase. However, if you make a return then the cashback savings you received from that order will be reversed on your account.
Like this post on how to save money every day? Check out more great tips and ideas here:
- FabFitFun Review – My honest thoughts on the Fall Box
- Kiwi Kids Subscription Box For Kids
- Baby Subscription Box
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