We wrote previously about using a shopping portal for eBay purchases, see Best Shopping Portal for eBay Purchases. Typically, the best we can get for eBay purchases is 1-2%, although there may be occasional increases for certain categories.
Reader Anthony commented there that there is actually a shopping which offers a whopping 5% on all eBay purchases called Inbox Dollars.
The website is mostly about other ways to make money like surveys and playing games, very similar to Swagbucks which many of you have have heard of. They more recently started offering some shopping offers as well, exactly as any other shopping portal.
5% on eBay
There aren’t too many great shopping offers available, but there is this 5% eBay offer.
To find the eBay offer, go to the Deals tab, and then to the Shopping option.
Important: There is a $30 minimum payout amount. Payout is in the form of a check or a prepaid card or other gift card.
Notes
- Inbox Dollars also offers a $5 initial sign on bonus which you’ll get whether you sign up using a referral link or if you sign up directly.
- The company seems to be a large company judging from their Alexa and I’m not too worried about them going out of business. They also have a robust chat feature on the website which inspires confidence in me.
- Reader Anthony used the site for the past year and used the portal many times for Groupon purchases (which were previously 10% on the site). All but one of the transactions posted automatically. The one that didn’t post got corrected via chat.
- When you signup, the default setting is that you’ll get some spam email from them around 3 times per day. You can easily change that under My Account > My Profile.
Inactive Accounts
Update: A reader pointed out that the site requires you to maintain some sort of activity in order to remain a full member. You need to either confirm an email (which won’t work for someone who is unsubscribed from emails) or visit the site while logged in. You must do this every 10 days.
After 10 days, the account is marked inactive, but the funds in the account are not lost. You then need to request a reactivation of the account and all the funds will remain.
It may be worth just keeping yourself subscribed to the spam they send and make sure to click on one every few days. Or set yourself a reminder to login every 10 days. Of course, if you use the site often for eBay purchases, these things won’t be necessary.
Read more about inactive accounts here and about paid emails here.
See also Caveats to Keep in Mind About Inbox Dollars Shopping Portal
Final Thoughts
I just used the portal for the first time yesterday and I’m not here to vouch for it; we definitely need more trial before we can do so.
Anthony told me that historically they put out a high shopping offer and then lower it, apparently as an initial promotion, and it’s likely that the eBay 5% offer is a temporary thing as well. He also told me that they’ve paid out promptly in the past.
The main risk here is that the payout threshold is $30. Since we start off with a $5 signup bonus, we need to get another $25 in order to get paid out. That would mean spending $500 on eBay before they lower the cashback rate. (I verified with them that the initial $5 counts toward the $30 threshold.)
If you purchase gift cards on eBay, there is also a second risk that they won’t honor any cashback in the event that it doesn’t post automatically by saying that gift cards are not eligible. I’m optimistic on that front, but it’s something to keep in mind.
In the final analysis, I decided it’s worth it for me to try out the portal, being that the other portals just pay out 1-2%. Hopefully, the 5% rate will last for a few months and we’ll be able to make use of it in the meantime.
Remember also that there is currently an offer of 8% back in eBay Bucks and there are a number of gift card deals available as well. Add the 5% from the portal and it can really increase the deals there. The 5% offer could also be useful for the deals coming soon due to eBay’s 20th birthday.
If anyone else has experience with Inbox Dollars, positive or negative, please let us know in the comments or reach out to me directly (chuck at doctorofcredit dot com).
[Disclosure: The Inbox Dollars link in this post is my referral link. I’ll receive a bonus if you use it.]
