New wording on coupons~manufacturers being short-sighted and ridiculous

A big thanks to one of my fellow HotCouponWorld moderators for drawing my attention to this.

There is new and more restrictive wording on some coupons that have come out recently. For example, the recent $1 PomWonderful coupons state something to the effect of “may not be used during any store sale or promotion.” There is a Post cereal coupon coming out tomorrow, and it tells you “Only 4 of the same item may be purchased at one time.” (wording may not be exact, but that’s the gist)

Ok, soooooo much wrong with this, I don’t know where to begin. It’s just sooooo stupid on the part of the marketing people, I can’t wrap my brain around it. First, I’ll vent about Post.

The number of people who get multiple inserts is a small percentage of all couponers. Very few shoppers are going to have numerous coupons for the same item like supercouponers do. Most couponers that I’ve encountered get one or two of the same coupon. They get one paper delivered, maybe ask their neighbor or in-laws, and that’s it. And they are very proud to tell you that they saved $5 or $10 on their grocery order, even if they are not a supercouponer. If you print coupons, you get two per computer usually, so maybe you get two or four if you have a laptop and a desktop.

Four coupons, woo hoo, color me rich. Right.

But here’s the thing–there’s an overlapping national Catalina offer that requires you to buy five boxes of Post cereal to get the catalina. So technically you can’t overlap or stack the deals. Moreover, they’re stupid enough to limit you to how many of their very own product you can buy? “I can only buy 4 Post? Ok, no problem, I’ll buy 6 Kellogg’s instead.” I don’t do big shops every week and my family eats a ton of food. We honestly go through 2-3 boxes of cereal a week, and about 5 gallons of milk. Do you want me to buy your 5 gallons or your competitors’?

The Pom coupon–says it cannot be used during a store promotion or sale. If you’ve been following me for a while you know, the key to saving money with coupons is all about stacking deals. You have a coupon–great. But stack it with a store sale, a catalina offer, a mail in rebate or who knows what else–to maximize your savings. So clearly we have at least two manufacturers that are trying to prohibit deal stacking. But what else are they prohibiting?

As another deal blogger also pointed out, some of the Nexcare coupons say “may use one coupon per day.”

Please tell me I’m not the only one old enough to know this person’s name….do you remember?

I’m dating myself with this phrase………..but stop the insanity!

Because, let’s just take a moment and think. At the very least, this is what we are asking store cashiers to do–in addition to their other duties.

• Read the fine print on each and every coupon.
• Either memorize or read through a sales flyer for each order, so that they will know every single item that’s on sale. And quickly be able to do mental matchups on your order, so that you don’t sneak a buck from Pom.
• Not only scan your order, but keep a mental count of how many you buy of each item, because apparently you can’t buy more than 4 boxes of Post now or two boxes of Nexcare bandages.

Big picture, here, am I the only one who sees it? You’re being ridiculous. Extreme Couponing is just a fad, it will fade as soon as the TV show does. We are not bankrupting your company. Wasting company hours and resources on efforts such as this–that’s where I’d start looking to make some cuts. If you don’t want us to stack deals, then don’t run them at the same time. Run your promos at the stores and don’t put out a coupon during that time period. If you don’t want it to happen, don’t put it on the backs of store personnel to track this nonsense. How are you even going to know, when coupons are turned in for redemption….when they were used and if they were used during a promotion?

Because here’s the thing: The only reason I go to my neighborhood grocery stores, none of which (to my knowledge) are publicly owned is this–They have good deals. They double my coupons. They let me use coupons with sales and catalina offers and rebates and whatever else is going on.

And guess what? If I can’t do that because you’re being silly……….guess where I’m going to shop? What store never has sales, never has catalina offers, doesn’t double coupons or often have other promotions…….but has consistently low prices? Walmart. (Edited to add: One of my readers reminded me of the price-matching that Walmart does, and another said that hers will do doubles whenever Kmart does.)

And I hate Walmart. I purposely avoid posting about them. I loathe their corporate policies and their business model and I hate what they have done to change the face of American business. But if it comes down to it, I’m going to have to shop where it’s the cheapest. And my neighborhood grocery store is not the cheapest.  I like their meats better, I like the people better and I like that I am supporting local people, and both my Giant and my Acme regularly hire people with disabilities, which you all know scores big points with me. But their milk is $1.50 more per gallon than I can get at Walmart. Everything is more. And my deal stacking and coupons help me close that gap, make it doable.

Now, as a supercouponer, I make up a very small percentage of the store’s business. But I spend thousands there every year. If ten of us leave, that’s a big hit. A much bigger hit than you’re taking on my coupons. Think about it. And speak up. Tell your corporate office, they work with the manufacturers. And couponers, if you see a ridiculous coupon, email the company. Send them this post, just jot down a few lines, it only takes a few minutes and we need to push back on this. Because the food prices are going up, coupon values are going down and becoming more restrictive.

Ok, it’s getting late, I want to go to bed. But I do think this is more extreme backlash from Extreme Couponing. That link will take you to other op/ed pieces I’ve done about it.

Couponing isn’t even fun anymore, is it?