death of the coupon

[zixxi]

The death of the coupon
If you still clip to save -- and increasingly fewer of us do -- you'll soon be able to stop. Instead, you'll get discounts electronically. Here's how that will work.

By Melinda Fulmer
How e-coupons work
To get these electronic discounts, shoppers must type in their loyalty-card numbers on a store Web site and click to load the coupons to the account. The discounts are subtracted after those items are scanned at checkout.

U.S. grocery giant Kroger has coupons from Procter & Gamble on its store Web sites.

Kroger shoppers can also go to Shortcuts.com to link their card numbers to a broader array of savings from manufacturers and print out a list of the coupons they have loaded.

"There's no clipping and sorting and no forgetting the coupon at home," says Sharon Baker, Shortcuts' executive director. Baker says the site will have 75 to 100 coupons up by the end of the year.

Grocer Giant Eagle has partnered with SmartSource, one of America's largest coupon distributors, to allow its grocery customers to load SmartSource discounts onto their store cards on its Web site.

In the next six months, most major U.S. grocery retailers are expected to offer these kind of e-coupons linked to store cards, says Nelson, of The Coupon Mom.

In a few months, American shoppers will also be able load discounts to their loyalty cards via cell phone. Kroger has signed a pact with mobile marketer Cellfire to transfer coupons from manufacturers such as General Mills, P&G, Kimberly-Clark, Clorox and Del Monte to an application downloaded to cell phones.

There are no text messages or mobile spam involved. Customers will just download a coupon application to their cell phone and register their grocery-store card. Then, when they want to add coupons, they'll scroll down and click "OK" to select them. The coupons will be credited to their accounts immediately, says Cellfire CEO Brent Dusing.

Shoppers can even retrieve the coupons as they are walking down the grocery aisles.

"You are only in front of your computer a few hours a day. This allows consumers to save money when they are on the go," Dusing says.

Cellfire's application works with all mobile carriers, and the company is working to add more retailers and discounts to the service in the months ahead.

What's in it for shoppers?
Like it or not, you'll be confronting electronic coupons soon. Here's why:

-Convenience is the biggest draw, analysts say. Rather than clipping and sorting and trying to keep track of a messy wad of coupons, shoppers can have the discounts waiting at a register before they leave home.

-There's no embarrassment. Coupons allow people who don't like to be seen as cheapskates to get the discounts in stealth mode.

-At least in the current experimental mode, some of these coupons have larger face values.

-Conceivably, Nelson said, you could triple-dip and use paper coupons -- those printed off the Web and those you load to the card. Instead of buying three Sunday papers to get deals on three of the same products, you could print one off the Web (you can find click-and-print coupons on sites such as CoolSavings, SmartSource and RedPlum), load one to your card and use your Sunday coupons.

However, these electronic coupons aren't without a few drawbacks:

Most have a shorter expiration period than paper coupons.

There's no room for an error in your favour. Because they are linked to UPC codes on products, there isn't the same fudge factor at the checkout. If you didn't buy the exact same size or variety that the coupon stipulates, you won't get the discount.

"We all know the payoff is there" from coupons, Shortcuts' Baker said. But, she said, "It's not as easy as it could be."

[awaite]

Hmm interesting... is this only in the states?

[zixxi]

if the states do it it wont be long and canada will

[ddckp2]

Very interesting.... yes it won't take long for this to come to Canada

[turtle22]

so will it be just one card for all stores or a different one for each..? That would suck carrying around a bunch of cards

[liljj07]

Interesting!

[mrmick]

im sure there would be a catch somewhere such as limit of one coupon per day to be loaded on card or a limit of some dollar amount.