After selling Friends Reunited in December 2005 to ITV, Michael Murphy is now focussing his attention on the cashback giant Quidco. Using the knowledge and experience he acquired from many years of establishing the Friends Reunited membership base, Murphy plans to significantly increase Quidco's current 500,000 members when he takes over as executive chairman. Founded in 2005, Quidco is already the UK's most popular cashback website but Michael Murphy believes there is potential to increase transactions through the site from £250m to £1bn.
Cashback sites work by giving their members cash in return for purchasing an item or service from one of the participating retailers. Quidco currently has 1,300 partner retailers, giving its members an unparalleled choice of products to save some money on.
Membership to Quidco is £5 per year; however, this charge is simply deducted from users' earnings when they decide to withdraw the money they have earned from purchases made via Quidco. In order to incentivise members further, Quidco regularly teams up with many of the UK's best known retailers to offer exclusive cashback deals or vouchers that cannot be found anywhere else online.
Quidco runs on a 100% cashback model, meaning that all commission offered by the retailer is given to the customer. Other 100% cashback sites include TopCashBack.co.uk and ClickCashBack.co.uk, whereas some sites such as GreasyPalm offer just 50% cashback on purchases.
Despite Quidco's current dominance in the cashback arena, Michael Murphy plans to bring this affiliate marketing gem to the mainstream as he claims that "fewer than one in 10 people in Britain have heard of it."
Martin Lewis' hugely popular MoneySavingExpert.com regularly mentions and recommends cashback sites as an ideal way to save some money when shopping online.
According to Econsultancy's 2009 UK Affiliate Census, just 5 per cent of affiliates ranked cashback and other reward sites as the number one revenue-generating category. The affiliate community will be keeping a close eye on this story to see what plans Michael Murphy has up his sleeve to turn this already successful website into a logical first-step before purchasing online by all consumers.
