Capital One Shopping Review – A Must-Have Money Savings App for Students

While your college years can be some of the best of your life, they often come with a pretty hefty price tag. Making the move to college can be difficult because students need to budget for the transition to living away from the home they grew up in. To make things even trickier, college is often the first time students have to budget and manage money on their own. While budgeting in college may be the last thing on your lengthy to-do list, saving money doesn’t have to be stressful or time-consuming. Sometimes all it takes is getting a little creative and thinking outside of the box. 

Shopping extensions are one of the easiest ways to save money and find a better price shopping online. Not only are many of these browser extensions free, but using these shopping extensions requires minimal time and effort. With so many free shopping extensions on the market, it can be hard to determine which ones are worth the download. If you are looking for a top-notch extension that covers all the bases, the Capital One Shopping extension provides its users with a large number of high-quality shopping features that equip you with the tools needed to help save you money while shopping online. 

What is Capital One Shopping?

Capital One Shopping is a free browser extension that helps users save money. Originally launched as Wikibuy in 2014, this browser extension has since been bought by Capital One, and now goes by the name Capital One Shopping. 

Capital One Shopping’s goal is to make online shopping as easy as possible by integrating its shopping features into its user’s online shopping experience. Capital One Shopping can help you find the better deals, alert you of price drops, compare prices across various websites when shopping online, apply coupon codes to your online purchases, and offer you reward credits for online shopping. The best part? For the most part, most of these shopping features can be activated by simply clicking a button. 

An increasing number of users have signed up with a Capital One Shopping account in the last few years. Last year alone, Capital One Shopping helped its millions of users collectively save millions of dollars. 

Pros:

• Completely free
• Has partnered with thousands of retailers
• Provides automated coupon codes
• Provides price drop alerts
• Compatible with most internet browsers
• A mobile app version is also available

Cons:

• No cash-out option for rewards

Bottom Line: Capital One Shopping makes saving money easy with its highly integrated money-saving platform. This free shopping extension goes above and beyond by helping users save money in many ways with coupon codes, price comparisons, price drop alerts, and trending deals. It even helps users with online shopping by providing them with reward points. 

Is Capital One Shopping Legit?

Capital One Shopping is a legitimate company. Firstly, this website has been accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB), which marks it as a legitimate website and not a scam site. Capital One Shopping has also been ranked highly on TrustPilot with 4.6 out of 5 stars. This shopping extension also has millions of users who take advantage of Capital One Shopping’s features regularly.

These users also leave Capital One Shopping reviews on different websites, and anyone can find them with a quick online search. A Capital One Shopping review can say a lot about someone’s personal experience shopping online with Capital One Shopping partners. The fact that collective millions of dollars were saved for users last year alone is a strong indicator that individuals are highly benefiting from Capital One Shopping’s services. 

Who can use Capital One Shopping?

Anyone and everyone can use Capital One Shopping. The name of this shopping tool can be a little misleading as some customers might feel they’re excluded from using this shopping tool if they aren’t Capital One customers. This is not true. Anyone who wants to use this shopping tool can easily download and begin using the Capital One Shopping free browser extension at any time. 

Anyone who doesn’t want to deal with the hassle of finding online coupons can use the Capital One Shopping tool to save money on purchases. Anyone who wants access to promo codes, a better deal, lower prices, reward points, and many other features should download the Capital One Shopping tool, whether they’re a Capital One customer or not.

The Capital One Shopping extension is an excellent tool for students in need of items for a door room or apartment. The list of items that students need for their new living spaces is long, but necessary. From new bedding to kitchen supplies and possibly new clothes for a new city or state, college costs add up. Making the move to college can certainly cost a good amount of money, but Capital One Shopping can help students save money when they shop online.

How to get Capital One Shopping?

Not only is Capital One Shopping easy to use, but it’s also very easy to download. By following a few simple steps, users should be able to add the Capital One Shopping extension to their preferred web browser in five minutes or less. 

Make sure you have a compatible browser

Before you can add Capital One Shopping to your browser, you must make sure that your preferred browser is compatible with this extension. Because Capital One Shopping works with most internet browsers, this should not be an issue. If your go-to browser is Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, or Safari, then you are good to go. If it is not, and you would still like to take advantage of the Capital One Shopping extension, select one of the above browsers to move forward with. 

Download the Capital One Shopping Extension 

Proceed to Capital One’s Shopping website to download the browser extension. The Capital One Shopping site is easy to navigate, and you should find what you need pretty quickly. As soon as you navigate to the website, a button will appear prompting you to download the tool. The Capital One Shopping website can deduce which browser you are currently using and provide you with the complementary extension for that browser. For example, if you are using Google Chrome, Capital One Shopping will prompt you to download the Google Chrome version of the browser extension. Once you press the download button, you will be taken to the Google Chrome web store, where you can add the Capital One Shopping tool to your extensions collection. 

Create your Capital One Shopping Account

Last but not least, you must sign up for a Capital One Shopping account before you kick start your online shopping savings journey. Similar to the browser itself, creating an account with Capital One Shopping is completely free. You will be asked to provide a username and password, as well as a ZIP code (Capital One Shopper users must have a United States address). If you are an Amazon Prime user, you will also be asked to confirm that information. This is so that Capital One Shopping can factor in free shipping to your Amazon purchases. 

How to use Capital One Shopping?

Now that you officially have downloaded Capital One Shopping and created a shopping account, you can finally start saving money with this browser extension! Because Capital One Shopping is a top-notch browser, it doesn’t just provide its users with one or two ways to save money, but many. Below we will discuss the multiple ways that users can save money shopping online with this browser extension. 

Coupon Codes

Nothing feels better than watching your final checkout cost drastically decrease after using a coupon code. However, doing the manual labor of searching for coupon codes yourself can be time-consuming and fruitless. More often than not, a coupon code you find online will have already expired. If your main goal is to save money, it’s a big plus to find an easy way to save money when you decide to shop online.

That’s where Capital One Shopping comes in. This browser extension can search for active coupon codes for thousands of retailers and provide its users with these active codes. Other times, the shopping extension will also use discount codes that have been crowdsourced by other Capital One Shopping users. When it comes time for you to “checkout” online, Capital One Shopping will provide you with a list of available codes specific to an online retailer. It will then scroll through the available coupon codes and find the code that secures you the lower cost upon checkout. These codes will give lower prices to online shoppers for things they were going to buy anyway.

Price Comparison Tool

While many products are unique to single online retailers, other products are sold by multiple retailers. Capital One Shopping can discover whether you could pay less for the same product by purchasing it from a different retailer. For example, if you are shopping for a pair of Adidas sneakers on Amazon, Capital One Shopping will let you know if you could pay less for the same sneakers by shopping at another retailer. Capital One Shopping will also tell you exactly how much you can save by purchasing these sneakers from another retailer. If it’s a $29.99 price difference, you can save money by simply purchasing the same pair of shoes from a different retailer. 

Reward Points

One of the most advantageous Capital One Shopping features is its reward point system. Users love this feature because they earn gift cards for spending money. The more that users make purchases with Capital One Shopping, the more Capital One Shopping credits they’re able to earn.

As you shop online with Capital One Shopping, you will slowly accumulate shopping credits, or reward points, in the form of Capital One Shopping Rewards. Capital One Shopping will alert you with a pop-up notification if there are active rewards available on a site you are shopping on. The notification will let you know exactly how many reward points are available for a specific product. For example, if you purchase this phone charger from Apple you might receive 5% cashback. To take advantage of reward opportunities, users must click the “Activate” button on the pop-up notification. The reward points should then show up in a user’s account within 7 days. Capital One Shopping compensates shoppers with these points in a way that other shopping tools don’t.

Once you have accumulated your fair share of reward points, you then have the option to transfer these points to a gift card.

Price Drop Alerts

Oftentimes when we find a product that we wish to purchase, there’s no need to purchase it right away. Rather than make an impulse purchase, Capital One Shopping can help you determine the better time to buy a  product by sending you an alert when the price drops. If you wish to track a certain product you can simply add it to your Capital One Shopping Watchlist. If you no longer wish to purchase the product, you can also easily remove the product from your Watchlist. 

Another beneficial component of the Watchlist feature is its 365-day overview. Capital One Shopping provides users with a graph that shows how the price for a single item fluctuated over a whole year. This can help users decide whether they should purchase an item now, or if they would be better off waiting. 

Local Offerings

While Capital One Shopping is primarily an online shopping tool, it can also benefit users as they shop in their local area. Anyone can link any credit card to use Capital One Shopping’s local shopping feature. 

After linking your credit card to your Capital One Shopping account, users can then take advantage of Capital One Shopping as they make purchases at grocery stores, outlets, or restaurants in their neighborhood.

Is Capital One Shopping safe?

Yes, Capital One Shopping is safe to use. This browser extension does monitor your online activity, and shopping history, and does collect certain personal data. However, this is how the majority of shopping extensions work and operate.

That said, Capital One Shopping will not share any of your personal information with any other financial companies. This means you do not need to worry about how using Capital One Shopping’s services will impact your credit score or anything in the realm. Similarly, this shopping extension will also not share any of your personal information with other online retailers. You can rest easy knowing that signing up for a Capital One Shopping account will not lead to any spam emails or texts from online stores attempting to promote their brand. 

Is Honey or Capital One Shopping better?

Honey is another free shopping extension that operates very similarly to Capital One Shopping. Honey can also provide its users with coupon codes and price drop alerts. This alternative shopping app also has its own reward point system, which is known as Honey Gold. 

There are a few downsides to using Honey compared to the Capital One Shopping app. For one, Honey’s price comparison feature is fairly limited. Honey’s shopping browser extension can only show users price comparisons between different sellers on Amazon. Honey also tends to offer slightly lower rewards than Capital One Shopping does, meaning that users will make less money from using this browser extension. On the other hand, Honey does have a cash-out option, which is beneficial for those who would rather receive cash than a redeemable gift card. 

Does Capital One Shopping work on Amazon?

Capital One Shopping does work on Amazon. As users shop on Amazon they will receive coupon codes, price drop alerts, and price comparisons, the same way they would by shopping on any of Capital One Shopping’s other partnering sites. To top that off, Capital One Shopping even adjusts its services to cater to Amazon prime members. If you are an Amazon Prime member, Capital One Shopping will factor in free shipping for all of your purchases. 

You can also use Capital One Shopping to add items to your watchlist on Amazon. This feature allows you to keep an eye on the price of an item you like before purchasing it. The Capital One Shopping browser extension will track the price for you and alert you if the price drops. This feature will also let you know if there is a better deal on the item. A frequent online purchaser can easily use this feature of the Capital One Shopping tool as a way to save money on items they love.

FAQs

How to redeem Capital One Shopping rewards?

Capital One Shopping rewards can be redeemed through your account or the mobile application. Depending on how many rewards you have earned you can either choose to redeem some of your points or all of them. You can then take your pick of various gift cards. 

What are Capital One Shopping rewards?

As you shop online, Capital One Shopping will offer you Capital One Shopping rewards for certain online retailers. If Capital One Shopping has partnered with an online retailer, they will occasionally offer you Capital One Shopping rewards. That way, you can earn rewards shopping online at your favorite retailers. Once you have accumulated enough points, you can then trade your points in for gift cards.

How to remove Capital One Shopping?

By simply selecting the Capital One Shopping icon on your browser, there will be an option that allows you to immediately remove it. For example, on Google Chrome, the browser will give you an option to “Remove from Chrome…”

How does Capital One Shopping make money?

Capital One Shopping has partnered with over 30,000 online retailers. When Capital One Shopping users purchase goods from these retailers, while using the Capital One Shopping extension, Capital One Shopping makes a commission on the sale. 

How to delete Capital One Shopping account?

By removing the extension from your browser, you are also deleting your Capital One Shopping account. Simply navigate to the tiny “Capital One Shopping” icon on your browser, click on the options tool, and remove it from the browser. 

How to use Capital One Shopping on Amazon?

Capital One Shopping functions the same way across all of its partnering online retailers. Capital One Shopping users will receive automated coupon codes, price drop alerts, and price comparisons while shopping on Amazon. 

Is Capital One Shopping better than Honey?

Both Capital One Shopping and Honey operate very similarly, however, Capital One Shopping does have a few additional benefits. Capital One Shopping has a more beneficial rewards system, offering users higher Capital One Shopping Rewards rates and local offers. While Honey is more of an Amazon-focused shopping extension, Capital One Shopping’s features work across more platforms in general. 

Do you have to be a Capital One customer to use Capital One Shopping?

Capital One Shopping is a free tool for anyone, including people who aren’t Capital One customers. Anyone can download the extension and use it at any time to save more money when shopping online.

Is Capital One Shopping free?

Yes! The Capital One Shopping website states that the shopping extension is free to download and use. There are no hidden fees, monthly charges, or penalties to use Capital One Shopping as you shop at online stores.