Microsoft announced today that effective July 30th, it’s cancelling the Bing Cashback rebate program. Bing Cashback gave cash back to buyers who made purchases from participating merchants located through the Bing search engine.
Microsoft stated that there was low consumer adoption of the program, but reading through comments from users on the blogosphere paints a different picture. Bing Cashback was embraced by both buyers and participating merchants.
Even 3rd party sellers – those who sold on eBay benefitted from the added incentive of Bing Cashback. During the 2008 holiday season, many of my clients who ad
vertised in their eBay sub-title “This item eligible for Bing Cashback” saw an increase in sales. At that point the rebate ran 25-30%.
In 2009/2010 the rebate percentages lessened, but people still found the rebates enough of an added incentive to use Bing to watch for shopping results that had the Bing “Gleam” (the gold coin with the dollar sign ) next to it.
Granted, the Bing Cashback program wasn’t perfect.
Some of my clients who own ecommerce websites wanted to participate, registered for the program and never heard back from a Bing rep.
For the most part buyers were happy with Bing Cashback, payment was quick – but everyone once in a while someone had an experience in which it took weeks to get cash back.
There’s all sorts of speculation today about the real reason that Microsoft cancelled the program. And Microsoft has announced there will be a new program rolled out later this summer. No word as to what that is or who will be able to use it. One thing’s for certain, today’s consumers like rebate, ca
So for now the shine is off the Gleam and cashback will soon be gone. Hopefully we’ll see something new and exciting roll out before the holiday selling season.
-Lisa
FOLLOW me!