Online Coupons

Online coupons, printable coupons, promotion codes, coupon codes, and discount codes are digital or printed documents issued by retailers and manufacturers to promote sales by offering discounts on products and services. Discounts can be in the form of free shipping, a free items, a percentage off or a dollar amount off of a certain item or purchase.

Coupon codes, also called promotion codes and discount codes, are often a string of numbers and/or letters that can be used as a customer checks out. These are primarily used for online purchases. When a customer checks out, there is a small box on the check out page where the code should be typed in.

Printable coupons are coupons that can be printed out using a home computer and printer and taken to a retail or grocery store and physically handed to a clerk.

According to the CNN Money website, the savings from using coupons can be anywhere from 10% to 30%.

Some retailers offer printable coupons and/or coupon codes right on their website.

Coupons.com is an online coupons website for printable grocery coupons as well as other coupons.

Some online retail coupon websites and coupon forums include Retail Me Not, FatWallet and Ultimate Coupons.

Some coupon users swap online coupons or discount codes with friend or online.

The first coupons were printed on paper and handed out by the manufacturers of the products of Post cereals and Coke. During the hard financial times of the Great Depression in the 1930s, more households started using coupons. By the mid-1960s, over half the U.S. families used coupons.

Online coupons became available in the 1990s. By then, computer usage among the average American was common. Since then, online coupons have been readily available through varies means.

On May 5, 2009, Oprah Winfrey announced that the fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken was offering a free coupon for its new Kentucky Grilled Chicken. A link to the printable coupon for the free KFC meal was available on The Oprah Winfrey Show's website for a little over 24 hours. The Oprah KFC promotion resulted in thousands of downloads of the coupon and large crowds at KFC restaurants. In New York City, a crowd of customers staged a sit-in at a KFC after the manager refused to honor their printed coupons.