“Did you find everything you needed today?”
I cheerfully replied “yes!”, and chatted about this and that as she scanned my groceries. As I handed her my coupons, I cringed a bit, knowing that a couple of them weren’t going to scan. They were valid on the product I’d purchased, but were coded in such a way that they always beeped, no matter what.
Sure enough, they beeped. Item not found.
She stared at the coupon for a minute, looking down at all the fine print, and then up at the computer, trying to ascertain why they wouldn’t scan.
I pulled out the product from my bags and let her see that it was indeed the right item for the coupon.
“Well, I can’t figure out why these won’t scan and I can’t force them through or I’ll get in trouble. I need to get approval from a manager.”
I patiently told her no problem, and as we waited for the manager to come over, I silently let out a sigh of relief that I only had one child with me, and not all five. (Then again, if all five were with me and were bouncing off the walls, they might have been in a hurry to get us out of there!)
This scenario happened to me recently at Safeway, and as the scenario unfolded, I knew I needed to write a post about how to have a great shopping experience when using coupons. It’s easy to get frustrated with a store’s policies or lack thereof, but having your entire day spoiled by a bad experience at the grocery checkout just isn’t worth it.
Here are my tips for having a smooth coupon-shopping experience:
1. Know your stores’ policies, and abide by them.
Quite bluntly, if you are upset at a store because they wouldn’t let you use ten coupons when you know their policy is five, I don’t feel a bit sorry for you! Most stores do have coupon policies (there’s a list of most of our local stores here) and the rules are there to follow, not to break.
Even if you think their policy is ridiculous, you still have to abide by it.
2. Pay attention to the fine print on the coupons.
All coupons have fine print. Mostly, it’s just stuff like “use one coupon per item” (ie, not more than one coupon on an item), but increasingly, coupons are stating things like “one coupon per customer” or “limit four like coupons per customer”.
Pay attention to this fine print and obey it. If you accidentally break some of the rules in the fine print and the cashier points it out, then be humble, admit your mistake, and do not ask them to “push it through”. (Don’t buy the items if necessary, but don’t ask them to push it through.)
3. Keep your purchases reasonable.
You’re going to get a whole lot better customer service from the manager if you’re buy five of an item versus buying fifty. The manager knows that if you buy fifty of one item, they’re often going to have to deal with dozens of other customers who are disgruntled that there aren’t any more left on the shelf.
If you really want and need to majorly stock up on an item, you’ll have a whole lot better experience making a few trips over the course of a week rather than clearing the shelf. Trust me, it’s not cool to have a reputation as a shelf-clearer. The only thing it will get you is a stint on a TLC show.
4. Don’t embarrass yourself.
Guess what – sometimes the computer is right and you didn’t purchase enough items to get the instant discount, or the coupon was for a different size or variety than you thought. Don’t pitch such a fit about them not accepting your coupons that you are hugely embarrassed when you find out they were right, after all.
5. Realize the employee could get in trouble for scanning your coupons.
Yes, OK – there are a few checkers out there who do seem to get great joy into finding any possible reason not to accept your coupons. But they are the exception, not the rule. (And I advise generally just avoiding them if there is someone who really seems to have it in for couponers.)
Most of the time, if an employee hesitates to scan your coupon, or has to call a manager over, it’s because they are scared that they will get into trouble. A lot of stores have strict policies about which coupons they will accept, and if an employee breaks those policies, they can get into big trouble. Too many infractions and they could even lose their job.
Be patient when a checker hesitates if a coupon beeps. If needed, gently show them the product that you purchased for the coupon so they can match it up. Don’t roll your eyes when they have to call a manager over.
6. Always be cheerful.
Always have a smile on your face when you are checking out. Chit chat with the cashier and bagger about the weather, your kids, their kids, the beautiful produce, the new product you found, the unique spelling of their name, their new hair cut. If they don’t feel like chatting, then shut up – but always be cheerful.
Don’t try to sweet talk your cashier into doing something they shouldn’t, but do try to make their day a little brighter with a compliment to them or a comment about something you might have in common. They get lots of grouchy people through there every day, so it’s not hard to set yourself as one of the customers they enjoy seeing come through their checkout line – coupons and all!
7. Get over it.
There are going to be times when you are treated rudely no matter how nice you are. Sometimes they will pull a new coupon policy out of the hat and refuse to accept your perfectly-acceptable coupon. Sometimes you will have to stand at the customer service desk for half an hour while they look over your cart and your receipt to figure out why you didn’t get your instant savings.
Just get over it. Roll your eyes once when you get to the car, buy yourself a large Dr. Pepper at Sonic’s happy hour, and move on with your life and your day.
8. Realize it usually evens out in the end.
I used to head to the customer service counter for every dollar that they overcharged me. And then I’d head back to the customer service desk again the next time because they undercharged me and I wanted to pay the difference.
At some point, I realized that it usually just evened out. For every few times I’m overcharged, I’m undercharged once, and it usually ends up being a wash. If I catch that I’m undercharged or overcharged while they’re checking me out, I do try to remedy it in the checkout line, but if I don’t realize it until later, and it’s not a significant amount, I just let it go and make a mental note that “such-and-such store owes me $2″ and then “I was undercharged by $2″. It’s not worth the stress of sorting it out at customer service!
How do you make sure you have smooth coupon-shopping experiences?
$1.99 for Pantry Essentials (gallon) at Safeway
I use self-check wherever/whenever I can, so that I can verify the prices as I go and double-check my math if it’s a buy10save$5 sort of deal. For me, that’s just easier than trying to watch prices and items and everything else while chatting with the cashier.
I also make sure to check the receipt before I leave the store. This is most important for me at Walmart, because I do a fair amount of price matching there. It’s very easy for the item to get scanned once at the match price and again at the regular price, especially when the cashier is checking to see what the regular price is (say, on a half price deal). I’ve been overcharged the price of an entire corned beef before, and I knew something was up because of the total, so I just make it a practice to always look at the receipt before I leave.
I like your Sonic happy hour philosophy, btw! ;)
Speaking of knowing something was up because of the total… I was totally embarrassed when something didn’t ring up right at King Soopers on Saturday and I didn’t catch it. I was happily handing over my cash for $60 and then suddenly they asked me for my Sooper Card (I had entered it earlier but it didn’t take) and then it took my total down to $30. What kind of a bargain shopper is that?! *blush* :) Sometimes I think I am less careful when using cash!
When I know a coupon may have a problem (i.e had the problem previously), I try to hold those items to last, so that if and when the coupon beeps, I can easily show the cashier the items. I also make sure I know all the prices for coupons where you have to write in the value (I don’t write them in as I have had some issues with cashiers being upset that I did it instead of them).
I so agree with your over/under charge strategy. I used to go back to Customer Service when they undercharged me, and one time got yelled at for even doing that. I too realized that I got overcharged just as often and they balanced out most of the time. If I can, I try to catch it during checkout, but otherwise….I try to let it go.
Carrie I feel like you were at my check stand the other night at Safeway. I knew the coupons were for the product I bought but they beeped anyway. These were the ones that were printed. The cashier was so nice about it and I did not ask him to push them through just take the items off. It was a good bad experience. The only problem was the lack of the manager to explain what I had done wrong(if anything). The coupons in question were the ones for the smoked sausage and trix cereal.
I try very hard to treat the cashiers with respect because they are only the job they are given. For the most part they want to help people save their money. They are not out to cheat you out of your savings but keep in mind if you ask them to do the worng thing you could loss that person their job. Really was it worth saving that dollar? ummm, no.
I have had mostly positive experiences with coupons, but have definitely learned the most important thing I do is to know an approximate total I should be paying with the discounts/coupons, and then go over the receipt before leaving the parking lot. It’s sooooo much easier to deal with the same checker or customer service desk right then and there than it is to come back the next day/week/etc. and try to explain what happened.
Great timing on this post. I was also at Safeway this weekend and had problems with the printed coupons for the Fiber One bars and Nature’s Valley Granola Thins. They wouldn’t go through. They called the manager and they said, “If it won’t scan, we won’t take them” I was very disappointed, since I used the coupons on the correct product. I think they are having problems with the printed coupons that have only one scan code again. But I just kindly asked her to take them off my order, paid for my other items and left. I have gotten to the point with couponing that if it doesn’t work out, I just need to move on. It still is disappointing tho.
It does seem (based on readers’ feedback on the weekly Safeway posts) that the most issues seem to come with printable coupons that won’t scan. When I decide if a trip to Safeway is worth it, I look at the deals and see how many use printable coupons… And if the majority of things I’m going for are printable coupon deals, I’ll often skip it altogether. I hate conflict, LOL. :)
I make sure i only get what I have on my list and double check everything (price, size, amount, coupon value, final price-I do math as I go). I have made mistakes before, but I tend to not make a big deal out of it. If I believe I’m right when a coupon beeps, I ask the cashier to double check. If everything is fine, they normally don’t fuss, and if I make a mistake, I apologize and thank them for takin the time to check. I’ve found that being polite and respectful is often the best answer.
The Safeway cashiers are the worst about accepting valid coupons. Even worse than the cashiers are the self-checkout stations at Safeway. More and more I pass on good deals at Safeway because it simply isn’t worth the hassle.
See, that hasn’t been my experience at all. I use the self-check at Safeway and they are always great about it, and have even manually entered coupons if it’s obviously for the item that I’m purchasing. I’ve had far more problems, and been treated like something from the bottom of a shoe, at another-chain-that-will-remain-nameless. But, it’s not King Sooper. ;)
I would tend to agree, though based on my experience and a few blog readers’ input from time to time, it does seem like Safeway’s cashiers must get in big trouble for manually entering coupons – even the ones that are valid. So, it frustrates me but I’m starting to understand the employee’s perspective.
Jacob is right, Safeway cashiers are the worst among all stores I shop, they really don’t like couponers to shop there, but many times, I found their clerks clearing out shelves in their own stores and other Safeway stores.
On a recent trip to Safeway the cashier told me, “if they don’t scan we can’t take them”. I immediately panicked (seems like I always have some problem). She said it seemed to be the coupons printed in color versus those printed black and white. Don’t know if this is true or not… Has there been an “official” policy change recently that I am unaware of?
I think Safeway’s cashiers can get in trouble for manually entering coupons that won’t scan (see my experience above). They should still take them – with manager approval – if they are for the right item. What color they are printed in doesn’t have anything to do with it, though. :)
I’ve never had problems at Safeway either. I shop at the one on Academy and HW115 and have found them to be extremely helpful. One cashier (manager I believe) even gave me the ‘extra’ on an item that was less then the value of the coupon (I had asked her if she would be able to adjust the price of the coupon before she scanned anything).
I have had quite a few cashiers be minimally curteous at Safeway when I was cheerful and competely nice. I think there the few couponers who create a bad experience for the person checking them out and kind of spoil it for the rest of us. What I choose to do (notice it’s a choice) is let out a little “yeah!” when ALL the coupons scan and none of them beep. :) I just celebrate the positive experiences even if they are small. DON’T ARGUE! That has never helped me in the past.
Great post, Carrie! When I have a big stack (or a small stack!) of coupons to use at the store I sort through my stack to make sure that I don’t hand over any coupons for products I didn’t end up purchasing. I’ve handed over my stack without checking a few times before and been pretty embarrassed when the coupon beeped and I had to apologize for forgetting to remove the coupon! I also “mess up” my coupons to make sure that none of my coupons are sticking together. I’ve had a checker miss several of my coupons because of them sticking together and then he had to search through his coupon pouch to find the ones he missed. It was kind of a hassle and I was a little irritated about it, so now I make sure that doesn’t happen again. I figure if I’m spending my time to clip and organize coupons I want to make sure they don’t get skipped since that would be wasting my time. :^) I always explain to the cashier why I do that and I’ve never had one be irritated about it. Also, I try to add up my subtotal for the items on my list to get a ballpark figure before I even head to the store so I’m not surprised at my total at the store.
I “mess up” my coupons sometimes, too! Good tip – that’s not one that people mention very often, but it does seem to make a difference in how quickly they can scan your coupons. It works well to alternate printable coupons with insert coupons… If you are thinking far enough ahead to do that. :)
I can say as a previous grocery store employee (not here in CO but in GA) that coupons are counted in the till just like cash. If a customer throws a fit over a coupon and the cashier pushes it through they CAN get in trouble….the coupon shows as a negative/positive balance when the till is counted. It’s a big deal to have your till balance out at the end of the night and it’s harder to do than most people realize. As a cashier, if your till doesn’t balance too many times you can get written up, put on suspension/probation, or even lose your job.
That being said, I always try to be calm and nice even when I get a grumpy cashier. The store I worked at had us manually enter a coupon if it didn’t scan but after so many we had to get a manager override. Some stores may have changed their policy in light of the ‘extreme’ couponers though. I’ve never had an issue with Safeway or King Soopers, but this one cashier at Walmart gives me grief every time I (and by I, I mean every couponer that goes in) and argues over ‘it says one coupon per purchase’. He thinks it means one coupon, period LOL.
I shop at the Safeway on Village Center, and I almost never have problems with them accepting my coupons. They are usually very courteous. A while ago I used to have problems with things ringing up at the wrong price or their store coupons not coming off, but I would just go to customer service and they would fix it, no problem. My main problem with Safeway is that there isn’t one close to me. So, they have to have pretty great deals in order for me to go there.
I have found that when I use my inkjet printer I have a lot more problems with the barcodes not scanning. They just don’t print clear enough. I recently purchased an inexpensive black & white brother laser printer and have not had a problem since with printed coupons. I use the laser printer for my business so it wasn’t like I bought it JUST for coupon printing, it’s just an added benefit.