The Blog @ Shopping-Bargains

When eating out, families can often save a lot of money by choosing restaurants where kids eat free. Finding “kids eat free” restaurants, though, can be a chore for parents, especially when traveling. Thankfully, with MyKidsEatFree.com, there’s a new online resource to help parents out.

With MyKidsEatFree.com, you can search by city and state for local restaurants where kids eat free. I think this website can save parents lots of money and that’s why I wanted to share it with our readers.

I’m hoping one day the parents behind MyKidsEatFree.com will develop an iPhone application that will use my current location via GPS and provide directions to local options to restaurants where kids eat free. That would be especially great for traveling.

Today, TV news anchor Craig Ford of WTVA aired a special segment entitled “Dollars and Sense” that included Mike Allen of Shopping-Bargains.com.

Last week Craig Ford and I set down in my office and talked about Internet shopping, using coupon codes and getting the best deal online. Tonight this special program aired and contained a few minutes of our interview. WTVA posted almost 13 minutes of the interview on their website as well.

I enjoyed my time with Mr. Ford and appreciate WTVA airing this segment that featured us. The positive exposure was encouraging and much appreciated.

Shopping-Bargains.com joins with two other local dotcoms to produce a 30 second television spot to air in our community for 3 months.

Shopping-Bargains.com, StarkvilleEATS.com and StarkvilleNOW.com are jointly airing a 30 second commercial in the Starkville market. This television spot was produced by Broadcast Media Group in conjunction with Longboat Studios and provides three 10 seconds featurettes.

Missed it on TV? Check it out here:

A few months ago I wrote about my October 2008 visit to the Geeks.com headquarters in Oceanside, California. Last week I was interviewed by Bradley J. Fikes, a writer for the North County Times of California. On Friday, Fikes article entitled “TECH: Not chic, but it’s cheap” was published and discussed some Geeks.com history and their latest warehouse expansion. In this article I was briefly quoted about Geeks.com’s “open and human” organizational structure.

According to Fikes, Geeks.com has also experienced a growing popularity among frugal-minded tech-savvy shoppers. I extend my congratulations to Geeks.com for their continued success over the past 13 years. It is encouraging to read positive stories that highlight successful innovation and perseverance even during economically difficult times.

We value our long-term relationship with Geeks.com and look forward to helping them enjoy continued success. You can find current Geeks.com coupon codes and promotions on our site.

Today is the 10 year anniversary of Shopping-Bargains.com! We are very excited to have hit that milestone. Over the next few weeks we’re planning to roll out some special promotions in honor of our decade of helping people save money.

Looking back from our tiny beginnings, it’s been an amazing decade. In 1999, online shopping was viewed as the way of the future. The “dotcom bubble” ensued as lots of dreams and billions of dollars were invested into this space. However, in spite of the hype and promises, few dotcoms understood how to deliver a good online shopping experience and even fewer made a profit. Over the next two years, hundreds of online retailers went out of business (the “dotbomb” as some called it) when they ran out of venture capital and lost millions of dollars.

By 2003, however, people began to take a second look at online shopping. In spite of previous failures, there really were definite benefits and cost savings to this medium. Over the next few years many big brands and dotcom era survivors essentially got things right and found success. Within a few years most of the U.S. population had bought something online.

Fast forward to 2009. Online shopping is viewed as mainstream. Even in a down economic environment, Internet shopping is growing. People are turning to coupon and deal sites like ours by the millions to maximize their savings. We are enjoying this newfound popularity and are continuing to innovate. We’re continually adding additional stores and features for our shoppers to take advantage of the latest coupons, deals and trends.

It’s been an interesting and rewarding ten years! I personally thank all our shoppers and retail partners for their support in making us successful over this decade. We have truly enjoyed helping people save money. We also look forward to continuing our services through the second decade and beyond.

Several days ago a Facebook friend tagged me in a note called “Name Game.” The way this “game” worked was for a friend to answer a series of serious and laughable questions allegedly relating to his or her name. In this case, starting with her full name, the list of questions called for and then combined with information from various other personal questions to develop a series of gag names — as I recall, examples included her movie star name, political candidate name, mafia name, celebrity name and so forth. The results were actually quite funny.

When I though about this later, though, it wasn’t funny anymore. You see, once you are “tagged” in such a note, you are supposed to do the name game yourself, post your own “name game” document and share with 25 or so of your friends whom you tag. This process would be harmless among honest friends but many people become friends with people on Facebook who they don’t even know. This name game document represents a potential recipe for disaster. Let me explain why.

In recording the answers for this “Name Game,” one ends up providing all of the following information: your full name, city of birth, mother’s maiden name, father’s middle name, and even pet’s name. That is a powerful combination of personal information.  That’s when it hit me what this information represents. The answers to these questions are often used to verify identity for banking and other secure services. Armed with these answers and the victim’s email address (also obtainable via Facebook), a devious person could commit identity theft and other illegal or spiteful acts.

So, with this security risk in mind, I urge everyone to be prudent — even with fun and seemingly innocent things. Don’t share personal information in a non-secure environment like Facebook.  Beware of frivolous questions involving personal information. Think before hitting send or replying. It could be your identity or reputation that you damage in a vulnerable moment.

One more thing to mention about this true story: [Read more →]