It surely must not make sense from the stores stand point. In extreme coupons you can make up to 22¢ for the item you buy. And then you just buy a bunch and profit somehow?
In: Economics
It isn’t, not really.
All if this is based on stores that have double coupons, a store coupon you can combine with the manufacturer’s coupon to double its value. Occasionally there is a coupon for 25 cents off of yogurt, and there is some single-serving child size that is less than 50 cents. This is not something you will be able to do in general, those coupon runs you see on TV are largely staged.
Even when you are able to find one of these deals, there are a limited number of coupons out there, and you often have to buy a newspaper or magazine to get them. You go through all the bother to get 10 manufacturers coupons and 10 double coupons, you’ve just made $2.20. Try not to spend all your yogurt money in one place.
For the most part, the stores don’t care, either. Coupons are often a loss leader to get you inside, the stores lose money on those items knowing you can live on yogurt alone will have to buy stuff they can make a profit on. Plus, extreme couponing is good advertising for them. Most people won’t go through the hassle, but the belief they might be able to will keep them coming in.
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