you can save serious money on holiday shopping

by Alison Green on December 4, 2017

And now a word from a sponsor…

If you’re in the midst of holiday shopping – or, uh, haven’t started it yet but need to – I’m excited to tell you about RetailMeNot.

RetailMeNot is a deals site that offers discounts – often major ones – from loads of popular online shopping destinations. They have thousands of coupons, deals, cash-back offers, and discount e-gift cards on gifts, decorations, electronics, clothing, beauty products, and more.

For example, I recently used a RetailMeNot discount code to get 20% off a purchase from BestBuy, and used another to get 10% off sitewide at World Market. (Those are both still available!) You can even combine cash-back offers with codes to save even more, and can claim up to $30 cash-back in one click.

They have so many discounts that whenever I’m buying something online, I search RetailMeNot for possible coupons before I check out – and it seems like more than half the time, I end up finding one.

And if you’re shopping in-person rather than online (does that still happen?), the free RetailMeNot app will alert you to nearby offers that can be redeemed directly from your phone when you check out. They also have a browser extension called Genie that finds, combines, and applies savings at check-out — so you don’t have to even go searching on your own. (That’s currently only available for Chrome.)


RetailMeNot is offering up to $1,000 to one lucky winner. If you sign up for RetailMeNot here, you’ll be entered in their drawing. You could also win a $25, $50, or $100 gift card. (If you’re already signed up with them, you can still enter the sweepstakes by logging in at that link.)

If you like shopping and you like saving money, RetailMeNot is for you. There’s no cost to use to use it, and lots of savings. Particularly now when you might be doing a lot of shopping for the holidays, you should check it out. It’s basically free money.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by RetailMeNot. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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{ 19 comments }

{ 19 comments… read them below }

  1. fposte*

    I find RetailMeNot useful since I always misplace physical coupons and can often find their offer codes on RetailMeNot.

    1. Specialk9*

      I also love RetailMeNot. Other coupon sites pull tricks like not having promised coupons or popping up other pages, but RetailMeNot is just always solid. They tell you how reliable a coupon is based on people who have used and reported back (and possibly click-through checks, dunno the underlying metrics), so for iffier codes you can try and see if it works but you weren’t expecting it. It’s a good site. I often save big there.

      1. Specialk9*

        I also appreciate, Alison, how open you are about it being a sponsored post. I’ll gladly help keep the lights on for a great blog, but don’t like feeling tricked. Eg Apartment Therapy is a great site, but has started burying the fact that some articles are paid for, and it just feels skeevy and dishonest.

  2. PostRetail*

    Retailmenot is great for online, but I do know that some brick and mortar stores don’t like it, mine didn’t. We didn’t have a way to take digital coupons, and our coupons tended to be rewards for certain things (had a party or bought a promotional items), or as a census type situation (give this many out and how many come back to the store). Some of the ones were occasionally just made up or only running in certain cities. It’s certainly not great that my company was so against it, but it was frequently taken it out on us girls when we said we couldn’t take them.

    1. Observer*

      That’s not a problem with RetailMeNot. That’s possibly a problem with your company – I’ve seen more than one deal / coupon that was misleadingly set up or set up in a way that it’s hard to tell where and when the coupon was valid, and this wasn’t only from RetailMeNot or other deal sites. And it is DEFINITELY a customer problem. The site NotAlwaysRight (add .com to go there) exists in part because there are a lot of customers who take their frustrations out on floor and register staff, even though it’s clearly not their fault.

  3. Dorothy Mantooth*

    I use this all the time. I’ve been able to get in-store coupons and promo codes for online shopping. I may not find something 100% of the time, but every $ or % off is great and just takes 30 seconds to check.

  5. Reez*

    The store I work at has specifically banned the use of RetailMeNot coupons, so just be aware that it can be hit or miss whether the store will actually accept them.

  6. Mm Hmm*

    Additional caveat: when I was working retail, we had customers come in with coupons from RetailMeNot that hadn’t come from the company & we couldn’t accept them. For example, RMN was publishing e-coupons without bar codes for our store. We couldn’t take e-coupons without barcodes. I assume RMN was duped into publishing these. Please verify yours before you get to checkout if you can. No cashier wants to disappoint you by having to refuse a “bad” coupon.

  7. pcake*

    I been using RetailMeNot coupons online for yeras, and I’ve saved money on clothes, home stuff, musical and photography gear. I’ve never tried them in-store, though.

  9. Bookworm*

    Another user here and I like it a lot. Sometimes they have exclusive coupons so it can be a nice surprise. Have never used their coupons in a physical location, though.

  10. Pomona Sprout*

    Never used RMN before, but after reading these comments, I’m going to head over there and sign up!

  11. Carrie*

    I like RetailMeNot because I can easily check to see if there’s an additional discount available for an order I was about to make anyway. You won’t find much for online-only retailers — and for some discount retailers, it’s frustrating when the listed “deal” is actually just “here’s our weekly ad” — but for brick-and-mortar stores with online sales (like department stores), there are often some genuinely good deals out there. Free shipping, or 15% off your entire order, or the like. And it’s so easy and quick to check that it’s pretty much always worth a try.

  12. nnn*

    It never actually occurred to me that RetailMeNot is a business. It’s an incredibly useful site, but I’m surprised that it would be a viable business model.

  13. Trust Your Instincts*

    I like the premise but it seems it’s American only. I imagine as a Canadian I could use some online coupons but not all. Why can’t we get something this good?!

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