Do you really benefit shopping through apps?

We all are so flooded with discount offers on different shopping sites or bill payment, discounted traveling through apps and online shopping using certain credit and debit cards and of course mobile apps developed for the particular purpose. I can see a different full page advertisement of a shopping site on each of the newspapers published in my area and I am sure there are many more medias used by online and offline shopping establishments.

However there is a catch and one must know before trusting them as some of the offers are not for your benefit but these are like mouse traps in which you get trapped at least once for sure.  For instance, shopping malls and financial technology companies offer a flat discount through their coupon published on the newspaper and bringing that cutting makes you eligible for the discount.

Now look at the technical aspect of the offer, suppose they offered you a discount of 5% in certain section of the mall and you overlooked the section and bought general items as per your own list of items and reached to payment counter with your shopping cart they will cut a sorry figure because you did not buy what they wanted you purchase. But by then the bill is prepared and you have made the payment.

There is another aspect of this lucrative offer that you read the offer “5% discount” and you spent say INR 10000 in the right category and when you paid the bill on counter your discount was not INR 500 which you were expecting but it was INR 250 because you did not read the fine print that said “Up to a maximum limit of INR250”. The result you returned home with an extra expenditure of INR 5000. And I did not mention the price increase which is a common practice during such offers especially for grocery and clothing.

Whenever you pay your bills through the company’s website you must have noticed that they redirect to a page full of discount coupons based on amount you pay and in the process you go for a higher amount to grab a better deal of your choice. Most of the consumers must have noticed that once you have paid the bill and the discount coupon arrived in your mailbox the choices of offers are so limited that you rarely want to redeem them or the date is so close that there is a rare chance of redeeming the opportunity and the high prices on the items is another deterring factor.

Okay, I agree you get certain benefits paying your mobile, DTH, electricity and water bills through an app but there is a catch too. You get the benefit of paying through app only once per item. When you get the next reminder from the app company you get nothing. In case of traveling websites which offer you ‘handsome discount’, never forget going to other similar sites and I am 100% sure you will get a cheaper offer for the same destination with a better hotel without making any compromise for your dates and amenities.