Janelle writes:
The cashier at Safeway told me something today, and you’re the only one I know that might have an answer. He said that manufacturer’s are going to be moving away from paper coupons starting this next year because of the money the lose from those who copy, cheat, etc. Is that true? He also mentioned that, starting sometime in March, Safeway will no longer accept paper coupons…I assume he was correct on that since he works there. But have you heard about the no more coupon thing?
Ah, the old “such-and-such store is no longer going to accept paper coupons” rumor. Frankly, while I know this is bound to happen in the future, rumors like this have flown wildly for the past couple of years and none of them have ever materialized. I have no reason to think that Safeway is going to stop accepting paper coupons in March or any other set time. It might happen, but I doubt it.
While it does seem that paper coupons are slowing down some (moreso in terms of lower values than fewer actual coupons), it seems to me that either printable or newspaper insert coupons are major forms of marketing for manufacturers and since no one seems to have implement a digital coupon system that is a smashing success, I personally don’t think we’ll see paper coupons going away any time soon.
What we have seen, and might continue to see, is stores tightening their coupon acceptance policies to prevent fraud and excessive use. There has been a lot of that in the past year and a half or so, but it seems that for now, most large chains have made the changes they are going to make and any further changes are being implemented store-by-store, at the manager’s discretion.
By the way, the only digital coupon I regularly use is Safeway’s Just for U program, so if you haven’t already, be sure to read all the details here.
$1.25 for Lucerne (half gallon) at Safeway, Fri-Sun Only
The biggest drawback to the Safeway Digital coupons is that they do not double. And if you have a digital coupon and happen to give them a paper one you lose the paper one. Not a big fan.
Which Safeway were you at? I had an employee at a Safeway tell me something similar months back. But he didn’t give a month. Just that they were going to stop accepting coupons and that coupons were going away. Just curious if it was the same location. :-)
I was told the same thing about the paper coupons at the Safeway on powers at carefree.
Yeah My experience is that the computer program they have that integrates with the cash registers needs a lot more work to work accurately. There are always problems so I have to wait for half an hour for a customer service person to wait on me and give me my money back or I hold up the line for half an hour because I figured out what I am supposed to pay and it is way off and we are trying to figure out what it didnt take. They are going to have to hire multiple customer service people and have multiple lines there if they want to service people. Still it is best to buy in small amounts because the receipts they have are so convoluted that it takes half an hour for their own employees to figure out what the right total is. And still Ive had to deal with people who cant do basic math on a couple items and want accuse you of being wrong or take a long time to finally see that you have figured it out correctly.
I wonder if it means that they’ll quit putting their store coupons in the ads. DH and I have been thinking that the J4U program was to get people to ‘move over’ to the digital side. I can’t imagine them refusing manufacturer coupons, but I can see that they might go to digital only for the safeway ones.
That’s a good point – I could see them starting to offer their store coupons only digitally soon.