Rebates like coupons offer customers the opportunity to obtain a product at a reduced price.  However, unlike coupons, rebates are normally offered after the purchase is made.  They are usually redeemed at some period after the purchase is made. The customer is required to mail in the rebate.  However, instant rebates do offer customers the opportunity to get instant price reduction at the time of purchase and hence becomes a coupon.

Payment is usually made via check, prepaid card or transfer to a PayPal account.  Payment is usually made within 4-8 weeks after redemption.

You can issue a rebate for a specific product.  It can be issued by the retailer or in conjunction with the manufacturer.

In order to obtain the rebate the customer is asked to submit personal data.  For example, name, address, email address, phone number, and provide a reason for making the purchase, etc.  This data is later used to conduct future marketing such as direct mail, email campaigns, etc. to promote other products.

The advantage to using rebates is that most customers will not redeem the rebate.  Many customers forget to submit the rebate and others don’t submit them by the deadline.  This leaves you with good percent of your product sold at full price and a portion at a discount price.  The non-redemption rate is factored in as you calculate the cost of the rebate promotion.

Rebates are usually used on high priced items such as computers, refrigerators, automobiles, etc.

Rebates are usually managed by rebate clearinghouses that specialize in processing rebates and contest applications.  There is usually a fee involved.  These are some rebate clearinghouses that you can use:

- AFLIGO

- Alliance Technology

- Arrowhead Promotion & Fulfillment

- Data Dash

- Inmar

- KBM Group

- Parago

- Phoenix Global Data

- PROS

- WeUseCoupons.com