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Coupon Crazy--Part 1 and 2

From the Terre Haute, Indiana News.

Part 1 pertinent parts: "Although she loves regular coupons, Beth told us she sees more people using "e" or online coupons.

"The e-coupons, you go online and you have like your Kroger Plus card and you just click load, load, load, load, load, load and they load onto your card. And I love them for the fact that if you forget your coupons a lot, they come off. You don't have to remember them, you don't have to remember to hand them to the cashier because they're automatically going to come off," said Montgomery."

Part 2: "Beth told us the first thing we need to do is look for the in-store ads near where the shopping carts are located.

"This is the ad that you're going to get in the mail, but if you look, there's actually a second ad here and this is the in-store ad. A lot of stores have started having an ad that's different in the store. Sometimes it's groceries, this one looks like it just has some household stuff, but they're trying to get you into the store so you will come shopping and get the different ad. And some stores also have a different ad online that will be different than these two," said Montgomery."

...

"She then took us to a place where many people don't look for coupons.

"Another place you definitely want to check if you're in the store, even if you don't drink, go through and look for the little tags on the wine. Most of the time, it'll tell you, you can't buy or take the tag unless you're going to buy the product, but in Indiana, it's actually illegal to require the purchase of alcohol for a discount so this.. (shows us a tag).. is three dollars off, by mail, for a pie, a store pie, so right there a store pie and often you'll find coupons for money off meat or products or things like that in the wine section," said Montgomery."

...

"One thing you definitely want to know about for your store is their "scan right guarantee" or their guarantee on how prices should ring up. So this.. (shows us some dog food).. is on sale for $17.99 and at Kroger, if it rings up wrong, we get it free and that's something that a lot of people don't know," said Montgomery."

You see what's happening here, right? This lady's been hooked, lined, and sinkered by marketing into wandering all over the store looking for coupons that might not be there--spending more time in the store (to be lured by other offers) than she normally would, and inevitably spending more money than she would. That free pie coupon she found in the wine section? She probably wasn't in the mood or market for pie, but it's supposedly free, so she went for it. She just told marketers what got her to respond--JUNK FOOD.

As far as Kroger having different ads, no that isn't true here in VA--the ads may LOOK different, but there is no difference between the online ad, the mail ad, and the in-store ad except the layout. The same merchandise is in each one, but in different locations. Kroger is obviously playing marketing games in Indiana.

Posted by Cute at 7:47 PM

Labels: food purchases