Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Coupons Big After Century Of Clipping

Knight-Ridder

It’s Tuesday afternoon - double coupon day at the Harris Teeter store - and Ann Derrick is cruising the aisles and thumbing through a handful of coupons.

“Fat-free Cracker Jacks, I wonder what they taste like,” she said, plucking one from the bottom shelf. “I’ve got a coupon for it, so I’ll try it.”

Derrick usually only clips coupons for products she regularly buys. But sometimes coupons introduce her to new products, and for 50 cents off she is more willing to try them, she said.

With two teen-age children who are eating her “out of house and home,” every dollar saved helps.

She’s not alone.

Coupons turn 100 years old this year, but they’ve never been hotter.

“It’s grown a lot over the past couple of years,” said Jim Brettelle, assistant store manager at Kroger, a big national grocery chain. “Even college students are using them now.”

Coupons, which are paper certificates good for discounts on a manufactured product, save consumers $4.8 billion each year. That would buy 60,000 children a private university education, or 96,000 of their parents a luxury car, or more than 685 million movie tickets, or about 1.5 million Caribbean cruises based on average 1995 prices.

Manufacturers report that 310 billion coupons were produced last year, or 1,240 coupons for every man, woman and child in the United States. And according to the Bloomberg Business Report, 30 percent of all Americans report that they wouldn’t go to the store without them.

To mark the centennial, the Coupon Council of the Promotion Marketing Association of America Inc. has launched a nationwide campaign to heighten consumer awareness and appreciation for coupons. The “Great American Coupon Celebration” will run through the end of November.

“At a time when fads and trends are proliferating, the fact that coupons are celebrating their 100th anniversary is truly a notable accomplishment,” said John Kalemkerian, executive director of the Promotion Marketing Association of America Inc.

“Coupons are regarded by millions of smart shoppers as a good value that is both easy to use and time-efficient,” Kalemkerian said.

Derrick, a Columbia, S.C., resident who works part time in a law office, is not as organized as some coupon clippers.

“I have to hunt through my pocketbook for them,” she said. “They’re all over the floor in my car.” Organizing coupons is at the bottom of her list of things to do.

Kathy White used to be obsessive about coupons “when I was a lot poorer, single and living hand-to-mouth,” she said. “I should probably be that way now since I’m in school again and living on my husband’s income.”

White was at Kroger looking for Puffs tissues. She had a 40-cents-off coupon but couldn’t find the color tissues she wanted. (“I color-coordinate everything in the house,” she said.)

She especially likes coupons for cigarettes, cat food, cereal and cleaning products.

The first coupon issued was for Coca-Cola 100 years ago.

In 1895, Asa Candler, the druggist who helped popularize Coca-Cola, began distributing special handwritten tickets offering customers free glasses of Coca-Cola from the soda fountain.

Today, more than 3,000 manufacturers offer coupon discounts on everything from cold cereal and laundry detergent to fast food and services. They are found in advertisements, stores and on product packages. They come in many forms, ranging from glossy, four-color jobs inserted in the Sunday newspaper to in-store electronic coupons and direct mailings. In fact, if you don’t have a coupon for laundry detergent in your wallet, you must be just dying to pay full price. Detergent and cereal are two of the biggest categories.

How much you can save depends on whether you are willing to use different brands or change stores; how organized you are; whether you buy only necessities; whether you keep a list of items that will be needed soon; whether you buy a sale item with a coupon; and whether you use coupons on one-and-a-half, double or triple days.

Home economists recommend planning your shopping list before-hand and taking only those coupons with you that you know you will use. Doing so also lessens the strain on the poor cashier and the wait for fellow customers.

According to a 1995 survey, 71 percent of all consumers report using coupons on a regular basis, and more than 6.2 billion were redeemed last year, an increase of 226 percent since 1974.

“The main reason that coupons are so popular is that they increase the financial power that consumers wield at the cash register, and they are an effective tool to help them gain control of their economic futures,” said Adriane G. Berg, a nationally recognized family financial planning expert and publisher of Wealthbuilder, a family financial newsletter.

Shoppers can save 10 percent of their weekly grocery bill by spending 20 minutes clipping and organizing coupons, studies show.

But with the busy lifestyles of today’s working mothers, finding time to clip and sort coupons is a challenge, said Joyce Christenbury, a family resource management specialist with the Department of Family and Youth Development at Clemson University in Clemson, S.C.

“With the lifestyles people lead, they rush in and out and don’t really shop-shop,” she said. “They just grab and go. You really have to be dedicated to realize real savings.”

Using coupons often leads people to plan their purchases and meals before they go to the store, cutting down on time spent at the grocery and discouraging “impulse” purchases that can quickly add up. Of course, you might be tempted (as Kathy Derrick was) by a new product, which you weren’t planning on buying, simply because you have a cents-off coupon.

“The key to a successful couponing strategy is threefold: planning your grocery needs, planning your budget and finally, planning how to generate the most value from your coupons,” Berg said. “But all of this planning pays off in the end because you’ve managed to save a nice amount of money while shortening your shopping trip.”

xxxx DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS EXTENSIVE Coupons are distributed several ways including: Free-standing inserts: These are four-color ads with coupons distributed as multipage inserts principally through Sunday newspapers. They are by far the most popular method for coupon distribution, accounting for 80 percent of all coupon circulation. They are known for their cost efficiency and ability to reach more than 55 million households in a single day. In-store electronic couponing: Includes coupons that are dispensed at the point of purchase as part of a customer’s grocery receipts, as well as instant coupon machines that offer coupons right in grocery aisles. In-store handouts: Favored by groceries, drugstores and mass merchandisers in major U.S. metropolitan areas, this accounts for 3.5 percent of all coupons distributed. Newspaper run-of-press: ROP coupons are printed typically in the newspaper food section, accounting for 4 percent of all coupons distributed. They offer flexibility and local tie-in capabilities. Direct mail: Distributed through the postal system and come in both multiple advertiser and single advertiser formats. Noted for targeting specific audiences. Knight-Ridder