According to Hitwise, one in every 200 visits to an online retail website in the UK now comes from voucher sites like Hot UK Deals or My Voucher Codes.

UK Internet searches for discount vouchers (coupons) have increased by 133 percent over the last 12 months, while visits to voucher websites have gone up by 45 percent, according to Hitwise. During the 12 weeks ending 15 November, UK Internet users searched for over 20,000 different variations on the term ‘voucher’, with many of these looking for discount voucher codes to use at the online checkout.

If you're a merchant and you're not using coupon/discount sites as part of your online marketing mix, now is the time to get started! While the data provided by Hitwise was for the UK market, you can be sure that (considering the current global recession) consumers will be looking for deals in the US as well.