Discount sites 'not always cheaper'
Updated on 26 March 2009
Websites offering discount vouchers for online shopping may not be as cheap as they appear, a consumer website has warned.
Which.co.uk discovered that price comparison websites often found lower prices for items than voucher providers, even after discounts were applied.
In some cases, they also found money-off codes were out of date or not recognised by retailers, meaning they did not work at all.
Jean Ross, editor of which.co.uk, said: "We found that popular voucher websites didn't always have the best deals or the codes were out of date.
"Make sure you shop around and also look at price comparison sites. Those extra few minutes searching could save you significant pounds."
The consumer website used discount codes from voucher providers such as myvouchercodes.co.uk, vouchercodes.co.uk, everydaysale.co.uk, hotukdeals.com and vouchercodes.com to shop online.
They then searched for the same items on price comparison sites such as kelkoo.co.uk, pricerunner.co.uk and whichcompare.co.uk to see if the products were available cheaper.
A Panasonic LCD TV priced at £781 - minus 10% with a voucher - was available for just £530 from some price comparison sites, while discount codes for a High School Musical DVD were not even recognised by hmv.com.
Voucher websites did have some good savings on clothes, for example at marksandspencer.com, and also provided codes for free delivery.
But other clothing sites, such as figleaves.com, had the same discounts on their own websites as the vouchers offered, without the need to enter a code.
These news feeds are provided by an independent third party and Channel 4 is not responsible or liable to you for the same.
