Microsoft Edge Shopping

Because online shopping is such a common activity, Microsoft Edge includes a set of features that can help you save money while doing so. Edge also integrates with a related Microsoft online service called Microsoft Rewards.

Shopping

A set of features called Shopping in Microsoft Edge can help you save money while shopping online. Note, however, that this functionality has two serious caveats:

It’s only available in the United States. For now, at least, those in other parts of the world cannot use Shopping in Microsoft Edge.

Microsoft will track you. When you use Shopping in Microsoft Edge, you agree to let Microsoft track your activities online. So the privacy conscious may wish to disable this functionality, which is enabled by default.

Shopping in Microsoft Edge is configured in Edge settings: navigate to Privacy, search, and services and scroll down to the “Services” section. There, you will find a single relevant option named “Save time and money with Shopping in Microsoft Edge.”

Or, navigate to edge://settings/privacy#Shopping in the Address bar.

Shopping in Microsoft Edge presents itself as a blue Shopping icon—it resembles a price tag—at the far right side of the Address bar when you visit a compatible shopping website. This icon will sometimes display a red overlay indicating how many coupons are available. And depending on which Shopping features are available on the site you’re visiting, you may even see a promotional animation to the left of the icon as the site loads.

Shopping will also occasionally display a pop-up alert when there’s a particularly good deal on the item or site you’re viewing.

To see which offers are available, click the Shopping icon in the Edge Address bar. When you do, the Shopping pane appears. (If you have the Edge Sidebar visible, this pane will appear as the Shopping view in the Sidebar.)

What you see will vary by retailer. But key Shopping features include coupons, discounts, cash back, price comparisons, and price history. Let’s look at each briefly.

Coupons

Microsoft Edge displays coupons found by popular price tracking services and the retailers themselves. You can copy a coupon code to the Clipboard and then paste it into the form you use to check out when making a purchase.

If you’re familiar with the heartbreak of using online coupons codes, you know that they often don’t work. And this is certainly the case with the coupon codes provided by Edge. But you can at least try each of the offered coupons to see if there’s a match.

Recently discounted items

The Shopping pane will sometimes display a selection of items that have recently been discounted on the current website, ordered so that the most heavily discounted items are at the top.

Cash back

Microsoft Cashback is a feature of the Microsoft Rewards membership program that is discussed later in this chapter. If you browse shopping sites with Microsoft Edge or search for shopping terms with Bing, you will be presented with offers to get cash back with certain stores or items. Then, when you make a purchase, you will receive the cash back via a payment to the PayPal account you configured for use with Microsoft Rewards.

Price comparisons and price history

When viewing some items, Shopping will alert you when the price has dropped—or increased—by 2 percent or more in recent days or weeks. And some items will provide a price history graph that shows you how the price of that item fluctuated over time. This can help you decide whether now is the right time to make the purchase: if the item has been discounted regularly in the past and is now at its normal full price, for example, you might want to wait.

Microsoft Rewards

To help convince more people to use Bing, MSN, and its other online services, Microsoft created a rewards program called Microsoft Rewards. It’s free to join: you just need a Microsoft account and a desire to use Microsoft’s services.

OK, you also need to accept the privacy implications of Microsoft tracking your activities online. As with Shopping in Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Rewards can’t do its thing without this tracking.

As with similar rewards programs, you earn points for specific activities and can then redeem those points for gift cards, sweepstakes, or donations. And while there are a variety of ways to earn points—including some daily quizzes and challenges on the Microsoft Rewards website—one of the most lucrative activities is to use Microsoft Edge to search the web with Bing.

Microsoft will prompt you to use Microsoft Rewards when you use Microsoft Edge. But if you’ve dismissed this offer, you can access a Microsoft Rewards mini dashboard by opening Settings and more (“…”) and choosing “Microsoft Rewards” from the menu that appears.

When you open the Microsoft Rewards pane, a Microsoft Rewards button appears temporarily in the Microsoft Edge toolbar. Oddly, there is no way to pin this button to the toolbar so that you can access this mini dashboard even more easily.

Once you’ve signed up for Microsoft Rewards, you can earn points by performing the daily activities that Microsoft suggests in the Microsoft Reward mini dashboard. Like taking a quiz, for example.

Or, you can just use the browser normally and be rewarded for searching the web with Bing. You will see some familiar shopping features in Bing search results, including coupons, price drop notifications, Microsoft Cashback opportunities, and more.