The Coupon Craze That Costs Business

It used to be that the customer would bring in a few coupons to get just cents off on a brand which he or she used. If planned right, the customer could even hit on a brand that the store was offering which would double or triple the value of a coupon used. The merchant would be happy because extra stock was moved, the manufacturers redeemed coupons with money on the sales, and the customer was happy because of the bargain. However, with the extreme couponing craze which is overtaking a lot of shoppers, how much is too much? Are coupons good for business? How can you, as a business owner, control the overuse of coupons?

What’s So Bad About Coupons?

Extreme couponers are shoppers who pay only a few dollars for an entire cart worth of items. The shopper combines store sales with manufacturers’ coupons and money off coupons hitting your profit margin hard. Some couponers even get money back when they are through with their purchasing. Needless to say, this is a problem. When ordinary customers who clip a few coupons come in to buy their favorite brand of spaghetti sauce and then find that shelf bare, this leads to unhappy shoppers. In the end, not only do extreme couponers buy in bulk and clean off the shelves, they can also take a chunk out of your profit margin. It’s difficult to walk the fine line between cracking down on extreme coupon usage while keeping up the bargains for the ordinary shoppers.

Ways to Limit Heavy Coupon Usage

There are ways to limit heavy coupon usage to get around extreme couponing. For example, you can limit “stacking” which is the combining of a newspaper's and an online manufacturer’s coupon on the same item. You can also limit the number of manufacturer’s coupons that a customer can use if buying more than one of the same items with coupons. If you have a loyalty program, you can decide that whatever loyalty rewards earned by the customer one day can’t be used until the next day. You also can limit the number of qualifying items that a customer can purchase with coupons such as ground meat, but not steak. You can restrict the use of coupons on general sales days.

Restrict also the use of print-at-home coupons. Each computer printed coupon at home has a number, and a customer that has printed and used ten of them on the same brand of items has ripped you off nine times. A manufacturer won’t honor the same number used on the same receipt more than once. Importantly, make sure your coupon policy is posted and visible to customers.

What is the Down Side of Couponing?

Excessive couponing can cause shoppers to buy products for which they get little use. They will buy the products whether they need them or not. This can lead to stockpiling and hoarding by some customers of your merchandise which restricts your stock. Since most coupons are for junk foods, ready-to-eat meals, frozen foods and processed lunch meats, this can affect the consumer’s health and well-being too in today’s lawsuit happy environment.

While it is true that coupon redemption may mean repeat business, it also means a bite out of your profit margins if abused. So it may be worth your while to scale back on the extreme couponers. To you it’s your business; to extreme couponers it’s a sport which encourages stockpiling and hoarding.

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