consumerpulse.co.uk

This review is for www.consumerpulse.co.uk

Who Are They?

Consumer Pulse is a website which is a member of the TNS group who like to do market research into the buying habits of individuals selected to join their panel.

They are a website which likes to have a selection of members throughout the country to fill in buying details on a wide range of topics and in return members are rewarded with gift vouchers for some top high street stores and travel destinations.

They are interested in items you buy from local shopping stores and are not interested in food and drink based items.

Signing Up and Format

This website requires people to be invited to join. You cannot ask the company to send you an invite and your friends cannot invite you unless they are told they can by the website. I was told I could ask five people to join around Christmas 2009 and this was a shock even to me.

You usually get a letter through the post if you have tried signing up to other panels for which TNS run and you might get a promotional code and a username to use and this promotional code will let you join the site.

Sometimes you can join this website if you have done a survey about buying habits and your sent directly through a link to the website to join up immediately and this is how I joined the website.

You fill in basic details about yourself and you’re ready to begin the journey.
The format you have to go through in order to gain points and rewards is by making sure you have all the details in front of you of the products.

You might need the barcode on the back of the product and sometimes the ISBN number on a book. Your aim is to try and provide the website with as much details as possible in regards to the items you have brought.

You first off all tell the website you want to add some items that you have brought. You get points per items added but you only get paid for 20 items per month, anything else added over this amount does not get counted.

You then have to search through all the items they have available for you to choose from. The items range from all sorts of clothing, cosmetics, music and films and even bills for mobile phones you might have paid.

You then have to select how many of each item you have brought so you might have brought 10 cds and you then select 10 next to the cds and continue further.

You then have to fill in details about each item usually the date you purchased the item, the price of the item, the name of the product and even the barcode on the back.

Once you have filled in all the relevant information you’re then asked to fill in how enjoyable it was as a product and who it was for. You even have to tell the system what shop you brought the product from.

Once you have done all this you then have the next item pop up ready for you to fill in and this continues until all the items you have brought have been processed and completed by you.

After 24 hours all the points you would have received are then added to your account to use at your leisure.

The Points System

Each week you log into the website you received 500 points but to get the 500 points you need to go through the shopping pages and either enter a product if you have brought one that is and if you have not just say you have not brought anything. You will receive 500 points per week just for going through that process.

Each item you enter into the website gives you another 500 points. However, you can only gain a maximum of 10,000 points a month doing this method so just 20 items. If you try adding any extra items you will not be paid in points for them.

Usually each month you receive some sort of survey based either on updating your own personal details to make sure everything is correct or just by filling in a short survey about your own buying habits. These small surveys which take around 10-15 minutes will give you a further 500-2000 points extra.

One final point to make is that each year on your birthday you are given 500 points free by the website, I am not sure if this is for everyone but last year I received 500 points and I hope I do again this year.

In theory you can earn almost 14,000 points a month if you visit each week, complete the survey you have come up and enter 20 items of shopping.
For a £10 voucher you need 10,000 points so each month you’re guaranteed to receive a voucher.

The Rewards

The rewards on offer are gift vouchers for high street stores or even charities and travel events. You visit the website and once you have received 10,000 points at least in your account you can then click on the tab saying ‘Rewards’ and take a look through the vouchers at your disposal.

Some of the stores you can obtain vouchers for in the high street are HMV, Waterstones, Debenhams, Next, Argos, Currys, House of Fraser, Arcadia Group and more.

In the charities section you only have a few choices and they are the NSPCC, UNICEF and Cancer Research.

Finally in terms of the travelling vouchers you can obtain vouchers for places such as Pizza Hut, Beefeater, Alton Towers, TGI Fridays, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Drayton Manor, London Eye, Thorpe Park and more.

These products can disappear and new ones can take their place. Not too long ago you could obtain BandQ vouchers but they were stopped.

All vouchers arrive usually within 5 working days which is quite good considering how long other sites similar to this one can take in sending the vouchers out to people.

If you have a voucher which never shows up within 2 weeks the company will send a new one out by recorded delivery and this is done without hassle.

The Website

I would have to say the website is perhaps the most basic of all websites you will find. You visit the home page and there is little to do there if you’re not a member.
You have a brief amount of information about what the company do and how they are run and that is about it.

If you are a member and you log into your account you find there is much more there to do, you can explore all the rewards you have on offer as stated above. You can take a look at the latest polls which are usually about the biggest event at the moment which is the World Cup currently. You receive no extra points for taking part in any polls on the website.

You can check the most asked questions on the site and contact the company for help if needed.

You can check the newsletter and enter the competitions for extra points and just see what items you can add when you do your next shopping.

On the rare occasions the website can seem to lock up and never let you log in and this can result in you losing points but they are always added back if you return later in the day so the website does have a few flaws now and then.

Good and Bad Points

The knowledge that you’re going to be receiving a voucher each month without fail has to be appealing to people. You hardly have to do anything at all in order to achieve this voucher but just enter shopping you have done but this does not include food and drink items.

I feel the speed to which the vouchers are sent exceptional and this is because most other websites which are similar tend to take over a month at times to send vouchers out to people so the speed to which this website sends vouchers out is amazing.

The range of items they are looking for can be very helpful in assisting you to get that voucher total because they have items in many categories and clothing is something we all buy so this is one area which does well and helps me complete the 20 items per month.

I feel the 20 items per month limited can be slightly annoying at times because if you have genuinely purchased 40 items which they have written down as available on their website then why not allow the person to do this? I can only assume they believe people might cheat the system.

On the rare occasion you can find your points not being added within 24 hours and if your after a voucher for a special reason this can be a problem. You never usually get an answer as to why they are not added and sometimes it can be a few days before they show up but this does happen that often but when it does it irritates you.

There is a way to cheat the system and sadly this is quite easy to do when you put your mind to it. I would prefer the website sent out scanners to people so they can scan the barcodes of the items and this way it would prove what you have brought.

You are not always going to remain on this website. After 2 years I was removed because they wanted new people apparently in my area but within 2 weeks I was reinstated by another website letting me rejoin the process. If you are removed from the site and have points in your account which are equal to a voucher they will let you redeem a voucher still which is pretty good.

Summary

In my opinion the website is a great one to join. If you do shopping on items besides food and drink each month you can gain vouchers for taking part. The invitation prospect is a problem because some people never get asked and yet others do.

The idea that you could in theory gain 17 vouchers a year has to be a good reason to join if you’re asked to do so.

I would always recommend people to take part in this site and if you’re only on here for a limited period at least you would have gained a voucher.