• by Todd Wasserman , Staff Writer, September 28, 2022

With inflation at more than 8% for the past 12 months, consumers have taken note. A recent survey by Bluecrew found that 85% of Americans have changed their spending and 57% have sought new or additional roles this year.

In addition to looking for new sources of income, consumers are, of course, looking to cut costs wherever they can. In a September Gartner consumer survey, more than 30% of consumers said they are using digital price comparison and coupon tracking tools. About 50% of GenZ and millennial consumers use digital tools to track coupons.

At the same time, coupons are in relatively short supply. Kantar Media estimates that in 2021 168 billion coupons circulated, compared with about 294 billion in 2015. The reason there are fewer coupons in circulation is because one of the the primary vehicle for coupons, Sunday editions of newspapers, don’t carry as many as they once did.

Digital coupons would seem to be the perfect solution to this problem, but that’s not the case. Why? Here are a few reasons.

Older people struggle with them.  Edgar Dworsky, consumer advocate and founder of Consumer World, told RetailWire that digital coupons don’t reach their intended target. “Digital discounts are no deal for many seniors. They are a clever ploy by big supermarket chains to get people into the store knowing full well that many of them will wind up paying more than the advertised price,” said Dworsky. “A substantial number of shoppers don’t have online access, don’t understand how to take advantage of digital offers, or won’t be able to follow the cumbersome online procedure no matter what their age is.”

Not all retailers distribute them the same way. Among the easiest-to-use digital coupons are those from Walgreens, Target and Kroger, which let you scan the barcode of the product and see if there are any eligible coupons.

One exception: the Coupons.com app is useful for manufacturer coupons. When you link your Coupons.com to your local store, you can get access to all the digital offers from that store.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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