Rebate (marketing)


A rebate is an amount paid by way of reduction, return, or refund on what has already been paid or contributed. It is a type of sales promotion that marketers use primarily as incentives or supplements to product sales. The mail-in rebate is the most common. A MIR entitles the buyer to mail in a coupon, receipt, and barcode in order to receive a check for a particular amount, depending on the particular product, time, and often place of purchase. Rebates are offered by either the retailer or the manufacturer of the chosen product. Large stores often work in conjunction with manufacturers, usually requiring two or even three separate rebates for each item. Manufacturer rebates are sometimes valid only at a single store. Rebate forms and special receipts are sometimes printed by the cash register at time of purchase on a separate receipt or available online for download. In some cases, the rebate may be available immediately, in which case it is referred to as an instant rebate. Some rebate programs offer several payout options to consumers, including a paper check, a prepaid card that can be spent immediately without a trip to the bank, or even PayPal payout.

Uses

Rebates are heavily used for advertising sales in retail stores. For example, an item might be advertised as "$39 after rebate" with the item costing $79 out-the-door with a $40 rebate that the customer would need to redeem. The turnaround time is generally four to eight weeks, though some rebates note a period of eight to twelve weeks.
In the UK, rebates are less common, with manufacturers and retailers preferring to give discounts at the point of sale rather than requiring mail-in or coupons. However, rebates are sometimes given in the form of "cashback offers" for mobile phone contracts or other high value retail items sold alongside a credit agreement.

Rebate clearinghouses

Most rebates are handled under contract by rebate that specialize in processing rebates and contest applications.

Types of rebates

Instant rebate

An instant rebate, or sometimes instant savings, is a marketing strategy or gimmick in which a product is either advertised at a specific price, or at a discounted price, where the discount is applied at the time of purchase. For example, the store may advertise a widget for $9.99, but with a $5 instant rebate, the price is $4.99. Or the product may be advertised as $4.99 with a $5 instant rebate.
Instant rebates are different from a "standard" rebate. Under normal circumstances, a rebate is given to a customer who mails in a coupon along with proof of purchase, and is mailed a check by the manufacturer or the rebate processor. In the case of an instant rebate, the rebate is provided immediately, at the instant of purchase.
We can see instant rebate as a discount on a product. In accounting strategy the actual invoice will be less by the amount of the instant rebate that is given to the customer. Then:
invoice cost = the product cost - instant rebate amount.

Regulations and laws

In the United States, Connecticut state regulations section 42-110b-19 require retailers who advertise the net price of an item after rebate to pay consumers the amount of that rebate at time of purchase. Rhode Island has similar legislation. Otherwise, the after-rebate price cannot be advertised as the final price to be paid by the consumer. For example, retailers in Connecticut can advertise only "$40 with a $40 rebate," not "Free After Rebate," unless they give the rebate at the time of purchase.

Rationale

Rebates have become very popular in retail sales within the United States. Retailers and manufacturers have many reasons to offer them:
Rebates may offer customers lower pricing. Deal hunter sites frequently tout the benefits of rebates in making technology affordable: "Rebates are the meat and potatoes of the ultimate tech deal, no matter what you are buying… They are paying you money to buy their stuff. All you have to do is take it."
According to 2011 research, 47% of consumers submitted a rebate in the past 12 months, whereas similar research conducted in 2009 showed that only 37 percent of consumers had submitted a rebate in the prior year.
Industry advisers claim that if mail-in rebates go away, they will not be replaced by "instant rebates" of the same value amount because of the loss of the tangible benefits listed above Steve Baker, vice president of industry analysis for NPD Group, comments that "It's a case of be careful of what you ask for. You may see some great deals go away."
Rebates take a certain amount of time and effort from the consumer – figuring out the rules, filling out the forms, preparing and dropping off the mailing, cashing in the check, keeping track of the paperwork while this is being done. Thus, a rebate can be thought of as being paid to do this paperwork and provide one's personal data to the company. Chances of rebate mailing being lost or failing some criteria may further reduce the expected return on this effort.
Consumers who are aware of this, and who value their time, effort, and opportunity costs above the value of the rebate may choose to intentionally ignore a non-instant rebate that requires such procedures and assume the out-the-door price when considering the purchase.
On the other hand, if the consumer does not see it this way, if the consumer's income and budget are extremely limited or non-existent, or if the consumer is more concerned with the price than his or her time for any reason, the rebate may be seen as a good deal.
Another potential disadvantage to receiving a rebate is that the rebate does not refund any of the sales tax charged at the time of purchase. Thus the consumer will pay more in tax than if the price had simply been lowered at the time of purchase.

Redemption rate inconsistencies

It is difficult to get an account of redemption rates from most rebate companies, partly due to a reluctance on the part of rebate fulfillment houses to release confidential business information. Among different sources, radically different numbers on both ends of the spectrum can be cited. Part of the reason is that most "redemption rates" do not distinguish whether they are calculated as part of total sales or incremental sales.
At some big box stores, personal computers are regularly sold with sizable rebates attached, making the advertised price more attractive to buyers. Hardware manufacturers have come under fire, also. Dell, for one, has been the subject of rebate complaints involving misprinted receipts, potentially confusing expiration dates, and service representatives who are slow to react.
Rebate issues began to clog Dell's customer service forums, leading the company to shut down that portion of the website. CompUSA used rebates regularly until it started closing its remaining stores in December 2007.
Cell phone service companies, including major players like T-Mobile, as well as third-party retailers like Radio Shack, Wirefly and others have received growing attention due to complex rebate redemption rules. Both carriers and retailers make customers submit rebate claims during a 30-day window, often 6 months after cell phone activation. Some authorized dealers have responded by trying to make rebate requirements more transparent, explaining that the carrier will withdraw payment from them if a customer quits service before the end of the contract.
In 2009, Florida State Attorney General Bill McCollum filed suit against TigerDirect, OnRebate, and TigerDirect's parent company Systemax, charging the companies with failing to provide rebates to customers.

Rebates as a form of price discrimination

A common complaint against rebates is the claim that rebates can be used as a form of "price discrimination" against members of lower classes who are less likely to redeem rebates than a more educated middle class. Sridhar Moorthy, marketing professor at the University of Toronto also advocates a "price discrimination" theory between "people who are price-sensitive and people who are not price-sensitive". A different view, as taken by the BusinessWeek article, is that rebates can be viewed as a "tax on the disorganized" that is paid by those who do not submit their rebates as opposed to those who do. As mentioned above, rebates are also less enticing the more the consumer values the opportunity costs involved in rebate submission.

Recent trends

Some retailers have taken a step forward with offering consumers new ways to submit their rebates easily over the Internet, completely or partially removing any mail-in requirements. Staples, Sears, TigerDirect, and Rite Aid currently offer an online submission option for all or some of the rebates they offer. These special rebates are usually identified as such and have instructions for full or partial online submissions. This is touted as a more accurate processing of the rebate, reducing the potential for human or mechanical error and, in many cases, eliminating the postage costs associated with traditional mail-in rebates, although some require the UPC or proof of purchase to be mailed in. Most of these retailers still let consumers submit rebates by mail.
In 2006, OfficeMax stores announced that they were eliminating mail-in rebates from their sales promotion in favor of instant rebates for their sale prices. The decision came after a year of working with rebate vendors and manufacturers to improve the rebate process and receiving "overwhelmingly negative feedback" from their customers about their rebate program.
Instead of checks, prepaid gift cards are being given by many stores. Merchants like these cards, as they cannot be redeemed for cash and must be spent. However, some states require that retailers redeem the card value for cash if it falls below a certain level, such as $5 in Washington state. Many sales people are not aware of this and will deny giving the refund. Consumers must be careful of expiration dates and read the fine print.
The typical American household that takes advantage of consumer rebates saves an average of $150 annually. More than $8 billion was issued back to American households in 2011 alone by rebate programs.