Review of "MasterCard MarketPlace - A Smarter Way to Shop Online"---and a $100 Gift Card Giveaway from BlogHer

This is a sponsored review from BlogHer and MasterCard MarketPlace.

This is a review of MasterCard MarketPlace - A Smarter Way to Shop Online.

The registration process required a full name, an email address, and a zip code. It also required me to choose a title (the choices are Mr., Ms., or Mrs.), which didn't seem like it should be necessary.

Next it asked me to choose at least three of my favorite stores from their options, and there was also a way to mark stores I DISlike, which was fun. You drag the store icons into shopping baskets marked "I like" and "I don't like"---and as you choose, more stores appear for sorting. I could have played that game all day. Altogether it took well under 5 minutes to register (if you don't count the extra time I spent playing with the shopping baskets--WHAT?).

When I was done, it took me to the home page where I saw it was already reminding me of sales and deals at stores I'd said I liked, and also telling me about related offers (deals it thought I might be interested in based on the ones I said I'd be interested in). When I clicked over later, the deals it was displaying were instead the current Hottest Deals, which included deals at stores I had put on my Dislike list---so you don't have to worry that disliking a store means you'll miss out when it's something super-awesome.

There were tabs to see lists of the newest deals, the deals ending soonest, and the most popular deals---I love that kind of thing, because I love the feeling that I'm not going to MISS something accidentally. Also, sometimes I might think I'm not interested in something (like a tool store), but then it might show up on the most-popular list with something that would make me think, "Oh! Actually, we need one of those!" And there are other tabs for looking at the top deals by category, like in Electronics, in Home, and in Kids & Babies. That would be fun for browsing.

(It looked like this.)
(Screenshot from http://marketplace.mastercard.com/.)
(You can click the picture to see it bigger.)

In addition, each day at 1:00 p.m. EST, until December 24th, there are special daily Holiday Overwhelming Offers, available only to MasterCard cardholders and only for 24 hours each.

You can sign up to have deals emailed to you if you don't want to poke around on a web site every day or if you might forget to check. You can also customize it so it doesn't bother you with deals that aren't at least 25% off, or at least 50% off, or whatever. Each deal makes it clear how much time you have left to act on it.

To participate in a deal, you click the "Shop Now" button and it takes you to it. Some are sales that the general public can also participate in; some are deals only for registered users. Some deals are improved if you use a MasterCard, or available only to MasterCard cardholders.

Overall, it looks like a good "deal center" for keeping track of all the places you like to shop and all the deals they have---and a good way to get EXTRA deals while you're at it.


BlogHer is giving away a $100 MasterCard gift card. To enter to win, leave a comment on this post by December 31, 2010, saying which store's deals (ANY store) you'd want to be able to track.


Rules:

No duplicate comments. You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

1. Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
2. Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
3. Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
4. Read the official rules for alternate form of entry.

Sweepstakes ends 5 PM PST on December 31, 2010. This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me; otherwise a new winner will be selected. The Official Rules are available here. For 19 more chances to win, visit the BlogHer Special Offers page.


From the client: "Overwhelming Offers (OO) are limited in quantity, reservation only and limited in time. Participating merchants and offers are subject to change. The OO discount is provided as a statement credit. See www.mastercardmarketplace.com for restrictions and complete terms and conditions."