Guest Post by Anthony Greene
Clarus Marketing Group / Freeshipping.com
I sometimes get asked the question by fellow coupon and reward enthusiasts where exactly the difference between
Clarus Marketing Group and Freeshipping.com lies. I was a little surprised to see how many people were thrown by this distinction, but it made more sense when I went to check their
BBB (Better Business Bureau) page and saw that they were currently unrated. I’m not sure why, seeing as how they are a real powerhouse in the online rewards business. There is in fact no real distinction between Clarus Marketing and Freeshipping.com, the latter is simply a daughter company of the former through which they offer certain services toward a more targeted audience. And since this information isn’t readily out there, I thought I would clear up this little misconception because I would hate for it to detract from the truly game-changing services the company offers its customers.
Freeshipping.com is the flagship website of Clarus Marketing Group (of
Middletown, Connecticut ), which they use to offer a suite of consumer benefit services such as free shipping rebates to customers through a members-only program. It is actually good to make this distinction clear, because it helps to explain why freeshipping.com is such a special deal in the ecommerce world and why it stands apart from so many of those other generic ones we see every day. You see, Clarus Marketing Group is a promotional and advertising agency that has been partnering with online vendors for over a decade. Their membership services are but one of many ways they seek to make the online shopper safer and to give him or her an easier and more pleasurable shopping experience. Unlike some other offers you’ll get online, Clarus Marketing is not a tiny company in some far away place who you’ll never be able to get a hold of. They are instead a benefits industry leader that is quite prominent and significant. It is that prominence that affords them the ability to offer such unique services on a subscription basis through freeshipping.com.
Something I just said is also very important to understanding Clarus Marketing and freeshipping.com as they relate to the rest of the rewards industry: “subscription service.” Unlike a simple coupon, promotion, or buying club, a subscription service like that offered through freeshipping.com provides a whole package of benefits that you pay an annual fee to acquire and can then use as you see fit. In a buying club, where you sign up and are billed monthly for discounted merchandise or products with some certain significance, you are often receiving things you never wanted and have no use for. With freeshipping.com, you are not paying for the products themselves. You are paying for access to the free shipping benefits. Once you do, those services are available to you for as long as your membership is active, and you have a far greater range of choice in terms of how to use those services, compared with many other savings programs. The package that Clarus Marketing has been able to offer through freeshipping.com as a result of their network of thousands of online vendors includes free shipping rebates, of course, but it comes with so much more than that. From additional discounts to consumer protection and a dedicated team of customer care professionals, you aren’t just getting a great deal—though you are getting that. You are also getting the key that unlocks the door to a whole side of Internet shopping you never knew existed.
