Capital One Shopping Review 2020: The Best Way to Save Money Online?

The eCommerce economy has been consistently growing by over 4% per year. This growth is forecasted to continue for at least the next few years. If you’re an avid online shopper, this probably doesn’t surprise you.

No matter what you’re looking to buy, you can probably find it online. In fact, you can probably find many versions of the same product. But the same products can be listed with different names and different prices on different sites. So how can a budget-conscious shopper tackle locating what they want, and finding it at a competitive price? 

You can always just shop around and compare prices on different sites. But it’s not easy to ensure that you’re getting the best deal you can find online.

In this Capital One Shopping review, we will go over one exciting solution that can help you find what you’re looking for at the right price.

What is Capital One Shopping?

Capital One Shopping, formerly Wikibuy, is a browser extension that helps you find better deals when shopping online. It does this by comparing thousands of online retailers and all the listings for specific products on them.

Many people just rely on Amazon for their online shopping needs. While Amazon offers a lot of conveniences, they don’t always offer the best prices. Imagine you’re shopping for a new guitar on Amazon and you find the one you like. How would you know whether Amazon has listed it with the best price you’ll find for that exact guitar? Or on the whole web?

Capital One Shopping can help you find a better deal for that guitar by:

• Comparing price differences between Amazon sellers
• Comparing Amazon’s cost with the costs of other online retailers selling that guitar
• Setting price drop alerts
• Finding cash back deals
• A universal product search that checks through all online retailers
• Finding coupon codes that could save you some more money

The thing is that you could, of course, do most of these things on your own. But that would take you all day. And you’d have to take those steps every time you want to make an online purchase. Even finding the best coupon codes can involve a serious search. Capital One Shopping helps you by doing all the homework for you in a short space of time.

Capital One Shopping isn’t the only app and extension meant to help online shoppers financially, so this Capital One Shopping review will explain some of the interesting little details that set Capital One Shopping apart from its competition.

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How Does Capital One Shopping Work?

Capital One Shopping is easy to use. It works simply and quickly. You just have to follow these steps:

Step One: Sign Up for Capital One Shopping

First, you just need to sign up for a Capital One Shopping account.

Capital One Shopping is free to sign up for, and its core services are free. The application process is very fast and simple.

There is one major drawback to Capital One Shopping’s free services. They make their money by collecting your data and selling it to third parties. Those third parties will use your data to target you for marketing. It won’t be a particularly invasive process, and you probably won’t even notice it. But if you’re concerned about data privacy, it’s worth keeping in mind. (We’ll have more details on this later.)

Step Two: Enter Your Name and Shipping Info

Capital One Shopping effectively acts as an intermediary between you and the world of online retail, so you will have to give them your name and shipping information.

Step Three: Download the Browser Extension

To use Capital One Shopping’s services while browsing online, you’ll need to download their browser extension. This step is easy to complete, and you can download the extension from the Chrome Web Store.

Step Four: Search for Products

Once you have the Capital One Shopping browser extension set up, you can start browsing. Using Capital One Shopping’s search function, you can shop for precise items and/or comparable items. You can adjust search settings to include:

• Variables like color and size, etc.
• Total price, including surcharges and taxes
• Pricing history
• Return policies
• Delivery arrival estimates
• Related products discoverable on Capital One Shopping
• Review and rating restrictions

You can use these settings to control the scope of your search. You can simply try to find the cheapest online retailer for one product. Or, you can find the cheapest blue T-shirt being sold anywhere on the internet. It’s up to you.

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Step Five: Make Your Purchases

After you’ve found the products you’re looking for, you can start buying.

How Can You Save Money with Capital One Shopping?

So far, we’ve gone over the basics of what Capital One Shopping has to offer. Let’s look at Capital One Shopping’s specific tools that enable you to save money.

Universal Product Search

Capital One Shopping’s Universal Product Search finds the lowest prices for any product. The search crawls on the Web, while also using the input of other Capital One Shopping users. If one user finds a lower price on a product, the information can be automatically made available to all other users. This is how the Universal Product Search improves over time.

Amazon Comparison Tool 

While you’re shopping on Amazon, Capital One Shopping will instantly check hundreds of other sellers. It will check other sellers while also searching for all available coupons that could get you a better price. 

This process continues in the background while you’re reading about products you’re interested in. When Capital One Shopping finds a better rate on a product you’re looking at, you’ll get a pop-up notification in the lower left-hand corner of your screen. The notification will include:

• The final price
• Shipping details
• Tax breakdown
• Delivery date

When you’re ready to finalize your purchase, you can then checkout on Amazon through Capital One Shopping and get $15 off, even if there are complications with your order.

Featured Offers

Capital One Shopping has a featured offers section to highlight the overall best value you can get on assorted products at any moment.

Trending Deals

The Trending Deals section highlights the biggest savings opportunities at top stores. These opportunities include coupons, cash back deals, and sales.

Watch List Price Drop Alert

Prices are always changing. If you don’t like the current lowest prices available for any given product, you can just wait for prices to drop. You can make the wait easy by using Capital One Shopping’s price drop alert feature.

After you set a price drop alert, you can forget about that product for a while. Capital One Shopping will notify you if the price drops.

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Automated Coupon Codes

Capital One Shopping is always searching for coupon codes you can use. If you’re shopping at one of their participating retailers, Capital One Shopping will send you a pop-up notification when the app/browser extension detects a coupon field.

Capital One Shopping Credits

When you shop for products at Capital One Shopping-partnered stores, you gain Capital One Shopping credits. When you’re shopping, you’ll get a pop-up through your Capital One Shopping browser extension. When you click the “OK” button, your account will be credited. You can view your account balance and spend credits at any time.

Capital One Shopping credits can be used to purchase gift cards from Capital One Shopping.

Tips to Save the Most Money

Saving money with Capital One Shopping is easy, and the app and extension are free. For greater savings,  take advantage of as many of their services as possible.

Using the Capital One Shopping browser extension is easy. Just make sure you always have it turned on. You can search for products directly through Capital One Shopping. That way, you can ensure that you’re getting the best possible deal. Just make sure to use your Capital One Shopping credits strategically to maximize your savings. 

Is Capital One Shopping Legit?

Yes, Capital One Shopping is a legitimate company. They are accredited by the Better Business Bureau and have no history of complaints on the BBB platform. And on Trustpilot, there is an extensive history of user reviews. The majority of those user reviews are positive, leading to an average score of 4.7 out of 5 as of this writing.

Capital One Shopping’s services are free, so they don’t have an incentive to defraud customers. However, they do have an incentive to engage in other activities that some users may find problematic.

While Capital One Shopping does save you money, some customers allege that the platform doesn’t necessarily match people with the best prices. Instead, Capital One Shopping seems to favor certain retailers, like eBay. This means they might not always live up to their promise of finding you the lowest price.

Capital One Shopping Security And Trust

Capital One Shopping makes its money by selling personal data. The company is cashing in on companies’ desire for customer data.  It may be surprising that Capital One Shopping can make all its money by selling user data, but data has now become more valuable than oil.  

So, if you use Capital One Shopping, be aware that they will track your browsing activities and compile that data. They will then sell that data to third parties, who will use it to target you with advertisements. This process, while often upsetting, is ubiquitous today. All search engines and many smaller platforms collect your data and sell it for advertising purposes.

While some of your data will be sold for advertising purposes, your most important information will be safely stored by Capital One Shopping.  

Capital One Shopping’s partner retailers are all vetted and reputable. So, your important personal information should be safe, and you can trust Capital One Shopping’s partners to not scam you. 

While Capital One Shopping is a trustworthy and secure platform, you should still take common-sense precautions when using it, because hackers can strike anywhere, at any time. Don’t share your personal and payment information off the Capital One Shopping platform. If you’re using Capital One Shopping while you shop, keep communication between you and them. And be aware that no platform is completely immune to hacking. Take the standard precautions whether or not you’re using Capital One Shopping.

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What About Customer Service?

Capital One Shopping hosts a customer support platform. You can use their self-help portal to solve any minor issues you have while using their platform. If the self-help portal can’t fix the issues you’re having, you can submit a customer support request.

You can also request support directly with an email to help@capitaloneshopping.com.

How Much Money Can I Save with Capital One Shopping?

We can’t tell you exactly how much you’ll save by using Capital One Shopping. But as the platform continues to develop and becomes more comprehensive, it should be able to help you save more money on more products.

For now, the savings you can get with Capital One Shopping will depend on the items you’re looking to buy. Capital One Shopping will be able to find you a cheaper deal in most cases. Regular use of Capital One Shopping for your shopping purposes will help you save more substantial amounts of money over time. 

Who is Capital One Shopping Best For? 

Capital One Shopping is great for anyone who shops online. Even if you seldom buy products online, you can benefit from the free and convenient services Capital One Shopping offers. There is no major downside. That doesn’t mean that Capital One Shopping is always the best option for online shopping. But it does offer a straightforward and simple service that saves online shoppers money.

Capital One Shopping Alternatives

Capital One Shopping isn’t the only service of its kind available online. Some customers have become upset at some of the downsides of Capital One Shopping, and we can recommend that you also consider some of their competitors before you decide which service to use.

Swagbucks

Swagbucks helps you save money when shopping online by:

• Rewarding you with redeemable points when shopping online
• Gift cards for the biggest platforms like Amazon and Walmart

Using Swagbucks is as simple as Capital One Shopping, and uses a similar search engine. But Swagbucks also offers other ways to get points, such as quick surveys. Swagbucks also has many other features like:

• A trade-in program
• Daily polls
• Special offers which reward you with more points.

To learn more about their features, check out our Swagbucks review.

Rakuten

Rakuten is a platform that gives you bonuses for your normal shopping activities. The service helps their users find:

• Cash back deals
• Coupons
• Promo codes

Rakuten works alongside 2,500 stores that are ready to offer shoppers savings every day. It’s a simple service that serves as another alternative to Capital One Shopping.

To learn more about their features, check out our Rakuten review.

Honey

Honey is another extension very similar to Capital One Shopping. But unlike Capital One Shopping, their plugin is available on Chrome and the following browsers: 

• Safari
• Firefox
• Opera
• Microsoft Edge

Their “Gold Rewards Program” lets you save up points from using Honey while you shop. Those points can be redeemed for gift cards at many big retailers.

Capital One Shopping Pros 

• Free to sign up for and use
• Easy to use
• Works in the background, allowing you to continue browsing as usual
• Saves you time and money, at no cost, and with minimal effort

Capital One Shopping Cons

• Seems to favor some platforms over others, despite longer shipping times for products
• Your data is collected and sold
• Mobile app needs some usability improvements
• Browser extension only available on Chrome
• Takes longer to buy through Capital One Shopping than it does to purchase directly from the retailer

Final Thoughts

Capital One Shopping is a simple and easy service to use when shopping online. It offers you limitless opportunities to save money online.

While Capital One Shopping’s use is easy to understand, it’s also easy to understand why some users are unhappy with their lack of transparency. Favoritism for certain stores isn’t uncommon in apps like this. But it’s never appreciated when a company promises “the best,” then settles for less to please their partners instead of their users.

Despite Capital One Shopping’s issues, the app and browser extension have a happy and loyal user base. That makes sense because Capital One Shopping is a free service that saves you a lot of money. For that fact alone, it’s worth considering if you’re concerned that you’re spending too much on your  online shopping.