The average Brit spends £3,827 a year buying things online, but millions of us are missing out on discounts that could be worth hundreds each.

That's according to a new study by Shopper.com, which looked into how people were searching for discounts.

Because, while the vast majority of us (86.9%) have used an online coupon to claim a discount at least once, just one in four do it all the time. That's 33% lower than the number of Americans that always search for deals before buying.

Worse, some 5 million Brits are missing out on savings because they can’t find offers or don’t realise they exist.

"Most shoppers blame themselves when they overlook the chance to make a saving using a discount code, but a third felt frustrated at the retailer for not making them aware of the potential savings," Shopper.com's report reads.

But that doesn't apply to quite everyone.

How "super shoppers" find discounts

Shopper.com's research found that about 1 person out of 7 can be classed as a “super shopper".

These expert bargain hunters go online to buy something every week and looks for discounts on almost everything.

Women are more likely to fall into this category than men, with women in their early 30s the most likely of all.

How do they manage to find the time? Simple, they automate it – using apps on their phone and browser extensions on their laptops and desktops to track down discounts the second they look at a product online.

When asked, the people using automated discount finders said the main benefit was how much time they saved.

Users also said they valued how many discounts they collected in one place, while others added they made them more confident that they’d got the best price possible.

At the other end of the scale, around one in 8 UK shoppers never look for discounts online – twice as many as in the US.

That works out some 5 million Brits consistently missing savings worth an about £200 a year because they either can't be bothered or don't know how to add something to their device to find them automatically.

Best automated discount tools in the UK

The most popular voucher sites in the UK – such as Quidco.com , VoucherCodes.co.uk, and VoucherCloud – list the codes on offer but you need to search for them yourself.

Some of them have apps, but these tend to use your real world location to find vouchers at bricks and mortar shops, cafes and restaurants near you rather than search for discounts online.

However, that's not to say there aren't automated voucher checkers in the UK too.

The best known is Pouch – which works as a free browser extension as well as an app to automatically find vouchers for you while you shop. It got offers from all five Dragons when it's founders went on the Den, and has since gone from strength to strength.

Coupons at Checkout works in a similar way. When you’re checking out at a shopping website, the add-on scours the internet to look for voucher codes which can be applied to your order. It works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

GoCompare’s Deal Finder (which works with Chrome) helps shoppers find the best deal on particular products in their chosen supermarket. It shows whether you’re better off buying single packets or multi-packs, or larger or smaller sized items.

You've also got Honey, which is a primarily US service, but works with a lot of UK sites too.

But whichever you use, simply taking the time to install one or other of them shold mean you start seeing savings automatically.

Source: Read Full Article