CouponCabin Review

Full review

The first thing users may notice upon visiting the CouponCabin site is the content. There is, perhaps, too much content. While it is undeniable that CouponCabin has a vast selection of deals and coupons branching across thousands of stores, the site can be fairly difficult to navigate, and its ad stuffed pages may not cooperate well with older computers.

On the other hand, it is apparent that CouponCabin has been in the online coupon business for some time, and judging by their running tally of coupons clicked and dollars saved, they have been doing it well. One of the truly outstanding and unique features of the website is its live chat, which is up and running at all hours to help customers find whatever they might need.

Signup

Unlike some discount sites, this one requires no particular sign in and its coupons may be used by anyone without becoming a member. Users may, however, sign up for CouponCabin's Coupon Club, and gain access to exclusive deals each week.

Features

CouponCabin deals primarily in online discount codes, which are provided by the site working with partner merchants rather than by its users. This seems to be an advantage for the site in that many of its coupons are assigned a gold star rating, meaning that the discount code is guaranteed to work. The ratings system for other codes is very similar to its competitors, as the code is rated on a percentage scale according to how many shoppers have been able to use it in a successful transaction.

CouponCabin boasts 3,571 stores on its website, with 104,951 offers available. There is a link for users to share their own coupons, but it is fairly well hidden at the bottom of each page, indicating that user submitted coupons are not a large part of the site's business. Rather, the CouponCabin team sifts through tens of thousands of e-mails, blogs, and consumer sites each week to find the most reliable deals for shoppers.

A unique feature of the website is a page linking the user to free samples. The page contains a long list of direct links to company websites from A to Z, advertising anything from a free recipe book for Australian Lamb to free digital magazine subscriptions from Zinio.

CouponCabin does offer a selection of printable and grocery coupons, but for more area specific coupons, the user should visit its sister sites, GoGrocery and CouponMap. The site's printable coupons can be a little confusing, however, as some of the link to the manufacturer's website rather than directly to the coupon itself.

Search

With the amount of content on the site, the search makes pinning down particular discounts and stores a little easier. The search allows for product, store name, and brand to help customers narrow down deals. To make things slightly more confusing, however, if a search result is not found on the CouponCabin site, sometimes the search will redirect the user to one of CouponCabin's sister sites, such as CheapUncle. Users not accustomed to being automatically redirected to a new site may be put off by this.

Notifications

Aside from its daily coupon mailings and newsletter, CouponCabin is accessible through browser add-ons for Internet Explorer and Firefox. The site is also connected to Facebook and Twitter, and offers an RSS feed.

Ease of use

CouponCabin is not the easiest coupon website to use, as it is extremely cluttered and rife with drop-down menus and navigation boxes. Specific deals are difficult to find unless the shopper sticks with the search box, but even then the user runs the risk of being redirected to a new site. Overall, there is simply too much information packed into each page to make navigation of the site easy, and casual browsers will find the website daunting.

Help & support

CouponCabin's support system may be one of the best around, with an easily accessible live chat button at the top of every page. It is fairly unusual for coupon sites to offer customer service at all, but CouponCabin offers live representatives around the clock, ready to help with tech support questions or questions on how to find certain deals.

Overall

CouponCabin may be exceptionally large and difficult to navigate, but its live chat help is a unique feature that brings the site up to par with its competitors. Still, casual shoppers who are frustrated by overly busy web pages may find themselves gravitating to other coupon sites.