WebbyPlanet is a relative new comer in discount coupon code listing sites. Launched by German company AZ73 LLC, its aim is to have an easy to use interface to allow users quickly find coupons offered by their favourite shops. Currently boasting 5,000 business affiliating with them, shoppers can easily find what they need through its simple search interface.

However, is it the best coupon listing site out there? Not by a long way, and they have a huge catch up to do.

(Just in case you are wondering what this post is about, I am writing a sponsored review paid by ReviewMe. For more information about ReviewMe, see my review here.)

Who is WebbyPlanet?

Let’s face it. WebbyPlanet is Yet-Another-Coupon-Listing-Site. This is how it describes itself:

Webbyplanet is an online community that helps shoppers save money and make smart purchases. On the site you will find online coupons, products, sales, reviews, and rebates. The site is updated throughout the day by its staff and forum members. We are dedicated to providing you with the tools needed to find the best deals online.

It is owned by a company in German, and has coupon sites in Australia, UK, France, Italy and German. I guess for my Aussie readers you will be more interested to know about their equivalent in Australia, where you can actually search Australian retailers for coupon codes (although I have yet to find anything interesting).

Coupons and links are listed in reverse-chronological order, and you can also sign up to their newsletter email to receive notification on all the latest coupons.

Online Community, Or Business Model?!

While its emphasis is on “online community”, I have not yet discovered any “community” feature on the website. Forums maybe? Except it is currently showing MySQL error, which is not helpful at all for a public website requesting a paid review.

Otherwise, its “community” is pretty much its list of retailers who are trying to advertise on this website. You can pay them $180/month to have your business listed on WebbyPlanet, or $300/week if you like the front-page spot. Funny that WebbyPlanet lists itself as “a SmarterGate.com company”. However when you visit the said website, it is nothing more than a parked domain with advertisement on gates and fences. Fishy?

After all, is it worth while to advertise on WebbyPlanet? Maybe — it has PageRank 5 and Alexa traffic ranking of around 110,000. Maybe it’s a good deal (I have no idea about the advertising market), but certainly 5,000 companies took the bait as they claimed.

Besides direct advertisement, WebbyPlanet also makes money through Google AdSense on shop pages and search result, as well as CPA affiliations.

But anything for the consumers?

Yup. There are some coupons when you search for them. Searching is relatively easy, although it does not provide an easy to use browsing interface (tagging or better categorising will be good). However I found majority of links actually do not have coupon code associated with them. They called it “linked coupon”, where discount is applied when you click through. When you actually trace through the links, you’ll usually find that (1) discount is available regardless whether you click through (2) they are just affiliation links which they get paid when you make a purchase.

So, what’s for us the consumers? You can certainly use it to search for coupon code, but don’t expect every link gives you a big discount.

Conclusion

Let me first thank WebbyPlanet for purchasing this review, and thank ReviewMe for letting me write freely. Coupon listing sites is a crowded market (at least in the US), and WebbyPlanet is far more the best out there. The concept is good, but its implementation leaves a lot to be desired. My biggest complain would be, there simply is not enough “community feature” to keep me stay on their site longer than I need.

It might have the shops that interest you. But for me, I’ll skip this one.