Here’s one thing you must remember before reading this article – only use Shopback for things you are going to buy anyway.
If you buy a RM100 product for RM50, you didn’t save RM50 – you spent RM50.
Now that that’s sorted out, let’s move on to the second part – tips to maximise cashback using the Shopback platform.
1. Know what you regularly spend money on, and see if any shops in Shopback offer cashback
Everyone spends their money differently. Some of you live by yourself, some of you rent, some of you live with your parents.
You are at different stages in your life, earn varying incomes, and have multiple identities. All these contribute to your purchasing patterns and habits.
So rather than “just using Shopback”, look into what you normally spend on first, then see if Shopback fits into your life.
All these listed below have cashback categories in Shopback:
• If you use a mobile prepaid plan, buy top-up credit there.
• If you don’t have much time, get your groceries delivered from HappyFresh.
• If you don’t have a car, order your Grab from there. Likewise, book a bus or rail seat from EasyBook.
• If you have a car, get petrol gift cards from Lazada and car parts from MyTayar.
• If you have pets, Lazada has amazing deals on pet food; HappyFresh also has pet shop listings.
• If you travel, book your flights and accommodation there. Compare from various companies, including Expedia, Agoda, Booking.com, Hotels.com, AirAsiaGo.com, etc. Find tickets, activities, SIM cards and more at Klook.
• If you want to get food delivery, there’s FoodPanda and Eatigo. Buy cakes from Cat & The Fiddle.
• If you want to buy books, find Book Depositary and Kinokuniya.
• If you buy makeup, there’s Hermo and Sephora.
• If you want to get supplements, there’s iHerb.
• If you want clothes, there’s Uniqlo, FashionValet, Asos, Zalora and so many others.
• If you buy online courses for self-development, find Coursera and Udemy.
• If you want to get an antivirus software for your computer, Norton and AVG are listed.
• If you want newspaper subscription, there’s The Star ePaper.
• If you use an iPhone, there’s even cashback for AppStore products.
• If you want to get postpaid/internet subscriptions, Maxis, Unifi and Digi are listed.
• If you need to hire a plumber, cleaner, mover, fixer – ServisHero and TheLorry (moving services) are listed.
• For electronics and other miscellaneous categories, browse Lazada, 11th Street and Qoo10 and find the best deals on this platform.
• If you want to look for cheap random stuff, browse in AliExpress and Taobao.
• For discounted group-buying stuff like beauty, activities, food and more, look for Fave.
Shopback has a lot more shops than the above, covering more niche areas*. But for the most part, these are the ones you would look for on a regular/semi-regular basis.
Again, if you’re going to buy them anyway, might as well get cashback while you’re at it. Note: you may be able to find better deals outside of Shopback. Shop around if you have time.
*Among the niche areas are:
• If you want to register domain names, find GoDaddy.
• If you want to get wedding planning services, find Wedding.com.my.
• If you want to climb freaking Mount Kinabalu, find Adventoro.
2. As much as possible, layer it with other cashback, time-limited promotions and points collection
Note: This does not necessarily add to your Shopback cashback. They’re an extra bonus.
Here are some examples:
• Collect credit card points when you pay by credit cards.
• Collect cashback when you pay by cashback credit cards.
• Collect air miles when you pay with travel credit cards.
• Collect BigPoints (Lazada has it).
• Collect BInfinite points from selected platforms (Lazada and 11thStreet).
• Shopback offers additional 25% off Fave purchases on Wednesdays – look for the discount code in Shopback.
• Additional sales, including but not limited to festival-related sales, MyCyberSales, Payday sales, Mother’s Day, etc.
3. Offer to make purchases on behalf of your company and friends
Employees have known of this trick for years, but it’s still worth mentioning here.
If you need to buy anything for the office and you can claim it back, do it. For example: Book flights and accommodations and give the company the bill for the full amount and keep the Shopback cashback for yourself (plus credit card points).
For friends, too. Offer to be the one who buys for the group. Here comes a caveat though: your friends must be the type to pay you back.
4. Earn referrals
Shopback is pretty generous with their referral bonuses. You get RM5 for each person who registers through your link, plus your friends get RM5 too.
They also host frequent referral bonuses i.e. invite nine people, get RM210. So lucrative is this deal that some people on Twitter, actively promote their referral links as a side income.
This article first appeared in ringgitohringgit.com
Suraya is a corporate writer-for-hire and the blogger behind personal finance website Ringgit Oh Ringgit. She is more of a minimalist, less of a consumerist, a konon DIY enthusiast, a let’s-support-small-businesses-over-big-corporations kinda girl. Prior to her current role, she worked in various capacities within the non-profit industry.