Why do companies prevent you from combining $X off coupons? If someone makes multiple purchases they still are discounting the same total amount right?
In: 0
To encourage you to make more purchases. They’re discounting the same amount, yes, but you’re also buying more things to get the same discount, so they offset more of the free stuff with money they make from you
When I worked in retail they told us it’s because when people combined coupons in the right way they would get products for completely free. Extreme couponers take it to, well, the extreme.
Coupons are intended to encourage you to spend more. While up front a $1 or 10%-off coupon costs the mfgr that amount, the idea is over time they will make that lost $1 or 10% up in increased sales. If you get two $1 off coupons on a $5 item, well maybe your brain gets inclined to buy TWO of those $5 items instead of just one. Company loses $2, but earns an extra $3 because you bought an extra one.
Also, if you’re somewhat indifferent to brand loyalty, and say a new laundry detergent is $1.50 cheaper than your usual, you go “hrmm, maybe Ill try it”. You do and you like it so you switch.
If someone makes multiple purchases they are also **buying more**.
Suppose I have a widget that it costs me $6 to make that I want to sell for $10. I also want to put out some coupons that give $2 off, since I can still make some profit selling the widgets for $8.
But I don’t want people to use more than one coupon at a time. If they are buying only one widget and use three coupons then I’m selling a widget that costs $6 to make for $4, losing $2 in the process! I’m in the widget business to *make* money, not give it away!
Now if someone wants to buy three widgets and use three coupons that is in concept fine, but this coupon rule is supposed to be enforced by fairly low paid employees that don’t have the time or patience to follow rules like “one coupon per item”. They don’t have time to look at a pile of coupons and calculate product overlap.
Just an FYI, the “systems” stores use to utilize coupons are not always 100% accurately working. They need to be coded in a way that the system will obey the rules of the actual coupon, but this is not always the case. “extreme couponing” is just abusing this fact. They find coupons with flat dollar amounts off that are not coded in the system correctly, and will scan multiple times. Then they think they can use the overage of the extra coupons to “buy” other groceries.
Usually all you have to do is look at the fine print on the coupon itself for the “rules of use” and point that out to them. Even if it “scans” it doesn’t mean its obeying the terms of the coupon.
Also, manufacturer coupons for a flat value don’t always account for the discounted price of their items, so if they make a product assuming its msrp is $5, and make a $4 coupon to get people to buy it, but X store sells it for $3, and you have 10 of the coupons, you can’t really get 10 free dollars and you also can’t exempt yourself from sales tax by overaging coupons.
TLDR I hate extreme couponers and they are just scam artists.
Latest Answers