Clever Shopping Club

I think this is a very clever idea: JackPot Rewards is a discount shopping club ($3 weekly) that blends on-line discounts with a weekly lottery.

I took a look at this and I thought the stores and prices offered were reasonable - probably NOT worth $3 a week by itself (though the "Deal of the Day" stuff has been very attractive), but then there's that lottery aspect: we spend $2-$3 a week on lottery tickets now, and often forget to buy them, or worse forget to check them. Yes, of course it's a waste of money given the odds, but on the other hand..

Well, you get the point. I think a lot of people might just go for this idea, and I suspect that this isn't the end of it: we'll be seeing more of this kind of thing.

Only a few hundred people were members when the first lottery ran: that was pretty good odds. Of course there will be thousands and thousands by now, but it still might be better odds than State Lotteries.. and of course if you just take the free trial and cancel before they charge you, well, you invested nothing at all. Those odds are even better..

I don't know if we'll keep it (probably not), but we'll try it out for a month and see how we feel.. I left that up to my wife, Professional Shopper and Certified Bargain Hunter - if she finds it to be worth the charge, it really is. If not, she'll chop it off like a piece of gristle on the chicken she's cutting up for lunch - no doubt about that.

My point here is not to advertise this site, but simply to point out the cleverness of the idea. I showed this to a customer who is starting to get into Internet retailing - he had the same reaction I did: "Oooh, I wish *I* had thought of that!".

However, any good idea is bound to get over-used. If consumers do find this attractive (real consumers, like my wife, not dilettantes like me), clones will spring up and soon you won't be able to sell anything on line unless you also offer a lottery. Note: lotteries tend to get more popular in tough economic times, so our present monetary troubles could add to this if it does become a trend.

Oh, one more thing: I can almost guarantee that signing up for this will increase your spam level. Use a disposable email address if you are tempted. Oh, and of course you can also take advantage of the "no purchase necessary" clauses that all U.S. lotteries require - though if postage keeps going up that isn't exactly a free ride either.

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