Local online coupons are making a return after several dot-coms bit the dust in 2000. This most recent one, Zixxo.com, seems to have a fairly easy to use coupon website engineered for local portals and users.

An advertiser or user merely registers with Zixxo to add or view local coupons based on your zip code. Once you are logged in, you can view a directory style listing of local coupons, print them out, and redeem them either online or at your local bricks and mortar store. Advertisers can also submit their local coupons for free, a price tag that no local business can bark at.

While this may be free for now to advertisers, there are rumors that Zixxo.com will charge 50 cents per coupon at some point, but even at that price, it is still a deal. What is your alternative, MoneyMailer or ValPack coupons? Thanks to the USPS, direct mail has become too expensive for most local mom and pops, this will be a good alternative for them in the long term.

Are there alternatives? Of course. Longtime online couponers like Coupons.com and Boodle.com are in the coupon race as well. But Zixxo.com understands that people shop locally, especially the Boomer generation that uses coupons to begin with.

Online couponing has always had a financial model issue. Until Zixxo (or any online couponer) gets enough traffic to make it worth a business’s time, they really can’t charge for their services. Also, the Gen X, Y, Z etc. ‘kids’ don’t coupon as much as the Boomers, which coincidentally are not bigtime internet users. The first online couponer that can couple coupons online with coupons offline will win this race I think. Bundling this service for an advertiser gives them a revenue model AND distribution.