Where do all these Dell coupons come from?

June 3, 2006 9:34 PM

Where are these people getting/generating their Dell online coupon codes from?

The whole thing seems cleverly automated, but just a bit /too/ slick.

I have bought one of these coupons in the past, as I was about to buy a Dell LCD Monitor. The coupon code was legitimately accepted and worked as advertised. But the question remains. How does someone seemingly independent of any relationship with Dell secure so many coupon codes that they can 'sell' them on eBay?

It seems like they must be signing up with bogus information to some dell site, collecting the coupon code and then forwarding the email to the buyer.

posted by Wild_Eep to Shopping (13 answers total)

Damn, that's a good question. I was wondering about that myself!
posted by evariste at 9:53 PM on June 3, 2006

By the way, you don't need to buy these. If you just call Dell and tell the salesman "I can buy a coupon off eBay for $X off this for a dollar, but I'd rather not bother-would you take it off for me?" they will. If they claim they can't, which happens to me about one in five times that I request it (I buy a lot of equipment from Dell on behalf of my job), tell them "yes you can, I know for a fact that you can." They'll tell you to wait and then do it.
posted by evariste at 9:56 PM on June 3, 2006

The codes aren't one-use and are only unique per promotion from what I've seen, so most likely someone is getting the offer through a flier/mailing/promotion/whatever and posting it on one of the innumerable coupon & deal watch sites on the internets. So the Ebayer can just browse a few sites and pick up a buck per taker reposting them with no risk/investment. Dell isn't missing the $35 off per $300 so long as you're buying through them, and the ebay buyer is only out a buck or two that effectively saves them the time of browsing all the innumerable sites. It's a little scammy, but also pretty innocuous.
posted by moift at 10:04 PM on June 3, 2006

Moift's correct. It's just somebody trying to make a buck off a code that you can find on numerous coupon sites. The codes are from newspaper ads, flyers, mailings and such. I see them all the time, especially in the "big" newspapers like the New York Times.
posted by bim at 12:20 AM on June 4, 2006

you know, i always assumed that this was part of a "non-traditional" marketing/sales technique on dell's part.

given that every single day there is some kind of new dell deal / coupon code posted on gotapex.com, it just seemed to me that they must be providing bloggers, etc. with codes and deals. most recently there was a $35 off $300 coupon mentioned at gotapex.com, and for the first time (that i remember anyway) they recommended buying one on ebay. so i took that to mean that dell was perhaps selling these coupons to "wholesalers" for maybe $0.25 or something.

anyway, i bought the coupon on ebay and had it within 10 minutes, and it worked.
posted by joeblough at 12:35 AM on June 4, 2006

No, moift is wrong. There are coupons like the ones he describes, and there are also 1-use coupons. You get them by being on Dell's email marketing list.
posted by knave at 1:58 AM on June 4, 2006

So am I right in thinking that this whole system is automated in some way?

1. I buy the code on ebay
2. Seller gets payment
3. When payment clears, some type of automation gleans my email address.
4 ???
5 They email me the code.

It sounds like step 4 could be either

-pull a non-expired code from a list

or

-sign up for a marketing list from Dell, receive the code, (verify it somehow?)

The only reason I think some background weirdness might be happening is that they all claim "10 minutes to receive the code". Why 10 minutes? Are they waiting for some Dell-bot to respond with a code, or are they just 'setting expectations' incase the seller's email message is held up along its way to the buyer?
posted by Wild_Eep at 7:20 AM on June 4, 2006

joeblough is on to something-- it is a fairly common practice for a retailer to supply coupon sites (e.g. fatwallet etc) with their own sets of coupon codes/coupon-embedded-links. It's actually a form of affiliate marketing-- the coupon code site gets a tiny cut.

Don't know for sure if Dell does this- IANADMD (I Am Not A Dell Marketing Drone).
posted by joshwa at 7:54 AM on June 4, 2006

Dell has an affiliate program (of which I'm a member, not that I've ever passed on the codes I get via email); that's where most of the ones on the 'net come from. At least the ones I get aren't per-use coupons, but most of them are limited to X number of uses (e.g., after the first 500 uses they stop working).

I'm happy to pass them along to anyone as they wish... if people are interested, I'll just set up a web page over at my world with a list of 'em as I get 'em.
posted by delfuego at 7:59 AM on June 4, 2006

So the people on eBay are getting paid once by the buyers and then again by Dell? Clever.
posted by reklaw at 10:34 AM on June 4, 2006

I think Wild_Eep may be onto something here. Infact, I could myself set this up fairly easily if I knew the source of the coupon codes. Paypal/Ebay have trivially easy APIs to use. So when you purchase a coupon code, my server will wait until the payment clears, take your email address, get the code, and email it to you. Would anyone care to let me in on this affiliate program or tell me where from dell I can get these one time use codes? Email is in my profile. I'd be interested to see if I could set this up.
posted by crypticgeek at 2:29 PM on June 4, 2006

Perhaps they just sign up tons of email addresses under their control for the marketing emails? Though it looks like each address is only good for 5 coupons, and that they don't want their coupons being sold on ebay.

"The Home & Home Office site and offers contained herein valid only for end users and not for resellers and/or online auctions. Pricing, specifications, availability and terms of offers may change without notice. Taxes, fees, shipping and handling and any applicable restocking charges are extra, and vary. U.S. Dell Home Systems Co. new purchases only. Limit of 5 systems per customer please. Dell cannot be responsible for pricing or other errors, and reserves the right to cancel orders arising from such errors."
posted by crypticgeek at 2:47 PM on June 4, 2006

yes, it worked as wild_eep describes. i paid $1 for a $35 off coupon and i had it in minutes. it was automated.

delfuego, that would rock.
posted by joeblough at 7:20 PM on June 4, 2006