• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer, July 31, 2008

According to a recent analysis Scarborough Research, Internet coupons are of increasing interest to consumers, Eleven percent of households currently obtain coupons via the Internet, and this has increased 83 percent since 2005. The Sunday newspaper remains the number one place for acquiring household coupons. Fifty-three percent of households get their coupons from the Sunday newspaper.

Other leading places for acquiring coupons include the mail, in-store coupons, preferred customer/loyalty cards, in-store circulars, weekday newspapers, product packages, and magazines. All of the coupon acquisition categories have experienced growth since 2005, however none at the level of Internet coupons.

 Alisa Joseph, vice president, advertiser marketing services, Scarborough Research, said "... Coupons are one of several economically-focused promotional tools that stores and product brands can use to get shoppers in the door and... the Internet provides an easy to use vehicle to search for coupons."

 Among Grocery Coupon Clipping Households, forty percent of Milwaukee households and 38 percent of Rochester households use grocery coupons once a week or more. Nationally, only 27 percent of households use grocery coupons with this same frequency. At the lowest end of the weekly users, fourteen percent of Albuquerque, and fifteen percent of El Paso, and Fresno households use grocery coupons once a week or more.

People from leading grocery coupon clipping cities have higher than average Sunday newspaper readership rates. Nationally, Sunday newspaper readers are 15 percent more likely than all adults to use grocery coupons in their household. Adults in leading coupon clipping market Milwaukee are 24 percent more likely to read the Sunday newspaper, and those in Rochester are 32 percent more likely to be readers of the Sunday paper.

 The analysis also showed that Grocery Coupon Clipping Households spend $114 on groceries weekly, versus the national average of $110, and are more likely than the average household to purchase a variety of grocery products across categories, from pantry staples to health items such as yogurt and energy/nutrition bars.

The study concludes that people across all income brackets clip grocery coupons. However those with higher household incomes tend to be slightly more likely to clip grocery coupons.

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