Honey is something that’s been around for a number of years, but has only just started taking off. In fact, taking off is probably an understatement – it gained so much traction in the personal fintech sector over the last couple of years that transactions giant PayPal paid an eye-popping $4 billion for it last November. Let’s dive into this Honey Review.
What is Honey?
Honey is the answer to automated discount shopping. It aims to be the ultimate time saver for coupon-lovers, performing quiet searches for money-off codes in the background while you add items to your online shopping cart. It applies them automatically at checkout, saving you trawling through those loud and unreliable sites like VoucherCloud, MyVoucherClouds and HotUKDeals.
Honey’s best bits
Throughout its evolution into a mainstream money-saving tool, Honey has added a few tempting new features to expand its user base:
1. A big new perk alerts users to cheaper Amazon purchases: Honey displays a badge alongside the price of an Amazon listing, telling you if another seller is offering a cheaper price for the same item.
2. Honey Gold: A loyalty scheme that requires Honey users to create accounts. When you purchase from any Honey-supported retailer, you receive “Honey Gold” (up to 20% of the value of your purchase in points). 1300 Honey Gold earns you a £10 Amazon gift card.
3. Price tracking tools: Honey is getting smarter. It can now show you the price history of an item, and alert you if items added to your ‘droplist’ go down in price.
Pros of Honey
● Couldn’t be easier to use. Search for the browser extension, click install, and you’re away. If you’re buying anyway, it’s a completely passive way to be sure you’re getting the best price.
● Can be used across multiple browsers. Honey can be installed on several browsers including the big 3: Safari, Chrome, and Firefox.
● Can now be used on mobile. The Honey Smart Shopping Assistant app can be used on both Android and iOS.
Cons of Honey
● There’s really only one con, and it’s the question of how often you’ll get a “win”. There are no guarantees Honey will find you a coupon. Some users have found it a bit frustrating to get their hopes up with Honey but not have any vouchers show up, even after a couple of weeks of use.
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Why is Honey free?
You might think having the legwork of discount hunting done for you would come at a price. The service is free, of course (paying a browser extension to save you money wouldn’t make sense), but you’d think Honey benefits in the same way most free tech does – by harvesting your data. In fact, Honey’s privacy policy is surprisingly reassuring. It promises not to track your ‘search engine history, emails, or your browsing’.
The reason it doesn’t demand your data is that Honey takes its cut from the retailers you’re shopping with. If it successfully finds a coupon for your purchase, and you complete the transaction, the retailer will pay a small percentage to Honey. The reason they’re happy to part with this percentage is that the discount economy works. It’s often the tenuous line between you making a purchase, and abandoning your cart. It’s simple psychology – we all want to feel like we’re getting a little bonus. The cost of Honey’s fee – and of providing the discount itself – outweighs the revenue loss of shoppers chickening out at the check out.
Is Honey worth it?
The answer to how much you’ll benefit from the Honey extension will depend on how much you shop online, but all things being equal, it’s a free tool that takes seconds to install, so you’ve got nothing to lose by trying it.
It won’t always return results – it’ll be more like one win for every few purchases, and they may be small wins at that. But it’s definitely worth having if you’re shopping for big ticket items online (like TVs or watches), as even a 5% coupon can mean a substantial saving. The Amazon lowest price alert feature is particularly clever, because it secures you the best possible deal without having to trawl through the vast array of sellers.
