Site offers electronic coupons to students

Students can now save more cash while helping to stimulate local businesses through the new Web site ECampusCash.com
Officially launched in January, the site offers deals and discounts to students from local restaurants, bars, clubs, businesses and services, said founder and CEO Doug Haustein.
“Our whole mission is to support local businesses while saving cash, especially if you’re a college student,” he said.
University students can find about 25 deals from about 20 businesses in New Brunswick and Highland Park on the site.
As a recent graduate of Pace University, Haustein said when he was in college he did not know about the local restaurants and services around him and didn’t give any incentives for him to come in.
He said his site helps bring exposure to these small businesses that have really great deals unlike more expensive chains.
“[It’s] to get people into these local businesses, to try their food and to really get these businesses off the ground instead of being empty half the time,” he said. “I formed it basically to stimulate all these local economies around colleges.”
The site features deals from businesses around Union County College, but in the next few weeks will include most New Jersey universities and colleges, Haustein said.
He said all site visitors have to do is log on to the site, locate their school and search for the business they want.
“They don’t have to create an account, which is the great part because everyone has a million accounts online right now,” Haustein said.
They can also type in a search word such as “pizza” and all businesses that serve pizza and offer discounts through the site will appear, he said.
On average, a student can save about 20 percent from the discounts — which do have expiration dates — but some businesses offer other deals as well, Haustein said
For example, Jersey Subs has a buy one, get one half-off deal for its subs.
But the site has a unique attribute that other coupon sites do not have.
“We offer students printable and text message coupons so they can log on [and] they save money through these separate means,” Haustein said. “It’s really cool technology. Basically, a student will click on a little button next to their offer that says ‘text coupon.’ They type in their cell phone [number], they select their carrier, they click ‘text it.’”
The coupon is then sent to the cell phone along with the business’ expiration date for the coupon.
Haustein said one of the great things about the site is that it does not use any paper, which is great for the environment.
“You can walk into the business — and all these [involved] businesses know this — and what you would do is you would carry your cell phone instead of handing over a coupon,” he said.
This method has another benefit as well, he said.
“If you’re on a date or something, you don’t want to hand out a piece of paper coupon when you’re with your date … it appears cheap,” Haustein said.
He said while some businesses have elected not to accept this method, most did.
Mason Gross School of the Arts sophomore Rachel Finelli said she likes the general service the site offers.
“If it’s voluntary then I think that anyone that wants to do it should definitely do it,” Finelli said. “I think I personally wouldn’t be a part of that because a cell phone is a private thing, but I’d do it out by e-mail, definitely.”
School of Arts and Sciences senior Raymond Castor said the site sounds like a great idea.
He said this site could prove very successful if the popular local restaurants and bars get involved.
“[But] if it had to be [by cell phone only] and there were some advertisements, fewer people would [probably] do it,” Castor said.