Couponing

 First Known Coupon From 1888

In marketing, a coupon is a ticket or document that can be exchanged for a financial discount or rebate when purchasing a product.

Normally, coupons are issued by manufacturers of consumer packaged goods or by retailers, to be used in retail stores as part of a sales promotion. They are usually distributed far and wide through mail, coupon envelopes, magazines, newspapers, and most recently by the Internet. Since only price conscious consumers are likely to spend the time and effort to claim the savings, you could say that coupons function as a form of price discrimination, enabling retailers to offer a lower price only to those frugal consumers who would otherwise go someplace else to spend their hard earned cash. In addition, coupons can be targeted selectively to small regional markets in which price competition is greatest, therefore narrowing the objective area even more.

In 1887, the Coca-Cola Company was incorporated in Atlanta with Asa Candler as one of the partners. Chandler is credited with transforming Coca-Cola from an insignificant tonic into a profitable business by using new innovative advertising techniques. His ingenious marketing included having company employees and sales representatives distribute complimentary coupons for Coca-Cola may have been his best advertising approach.  In those early days, coupons were mailed to potential customers and placed in various magazines.

The company gave soda fountain operators / owners syrup to cover the costs of the free drinks brought about by the new coupon marketing program.  It’s been estimated that between 1894 and 1913 one in every nine Americans had received at least one free Coca-Cola, totaling approximately 8,500,000 free drinks. By 1895 Candler announced to shareholders that Coca-Cola was being served in every state in the United States; quite the success story by anyone’s standards.

Regardless of this success story, coupons didn’t see widespread use in the United States until 1909 when C. W. Post who eventually became a Breakfast cereal magnate, determined that coupons could help sell breakfast cereals and other products.  It is generally believed that these days (2012), more than 2,800 consumer packaged goods / companies offer coupons for discounts on various products. In 2011 alone, U.S. consumers used coupons to save 4.6 Billion Dollars on their purchases of many products from foods to shoes.

Unlike in the early days, today there are various types of coupons offered: Including discounts, free shipping, buy-one get-one, first-time customer coupons, and free giveaways.

“Grocery Coupons” have the major advantage of being of practical use with most retailers and not with only one brand or store. As with other coupons, grocery coupons are intended for intelligent people who wish to save money when purchasing groceries but also to direct people towards buying a new type of food product that is often a newly released item.

Would you believe that coupons have even been used to increase the sales of various newspapers; you see, it’s not uncommon for people who have discovered the savings associated with free coupons to buy more than just one copy of that particular newspaper or magazine noted for offering money saving vouchers.

Occasionally a few grocery stores will double the value of a grocery coupon in an attempt or as an incentive to bring a greater number of customers into their stores. In addition, stores have been known to hold special events where they will double or triple coupon values on certain days of the week.

Grocery coupons actually come in two different types: Store specific or manufacturing coupons. A store specific coupon may only be used in one location(s).   For example retailers, such as Target might offer printable coupons for their stores only.  Others are issued by the manufacturer of the product being offered up for sale, and can be used at any store that carries that product, this type of course are deemed to be manufacturing coupons.

For a lot of years, clipping them from newspapers was the most popular way to acquire these free vouchers or coupons, although for the past several years the day of the coupon you might say has been reborn via Laptops, PC’s and Mobile Phones, in short, devices that are becoming dependent upon the endless uses of the internet, in this format, coupons are gaining wide popularity, especially when considering the state of the economy. It’s Needless to say that the modern age of Couponing is here to stay, after all who among us is not fond of anything  of value that’s really free.

Other than the newspaper, there are also coupon publishers and retailers who compile vouchers and coupons into books, some are for sale and some are free.

Clipping coupons from newspapers is still the biggest coupon business, but that could soon change. Here’s why: A recent study from Information Resources and Platform-A’s Business Intelligence organization found that: The younger the consumer, the more comfortable they are with accessing coupons online.

Yes 90 million consumers or 78 percent of retail shoppers, still use newspaper coupons, but keep in mind that nearly one out of every four of these coupon clippers are likely to be at least 65 years old, and guess what folks, they’re not getting any younger.  In contrast, nearly four out of every 10 shoppers, or 40 million consumers, are more likely to use coupons obtained from an online source. Of those in this group who also had a higher percentage of consumers most likely to utilize online coupons was only aged 18 to 24 years old.

Often coupons are available for purchase at some online sites such as e-Bay if you can believe it, but since most coupons are not allowed to be sold, the fee is claimed to be for the time and effort put into cutting out the coupons and shipping them to you.

It’s important to note that whenever you go to a free coupon web-site, you’ll need to down-load their free “Coupon Printer Assistant” (for the lack of better terms) in many cases; the process typically takes less than a minute to install in most instances and is only required on your first visit to any particular site, following this very simple install, “Happy Couponing”!

Sources:                                                                                     http://tgsfree4allinfo.blogspot.com/2011/08/coca-cola.html                     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupon                                                     http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/younger-consumers-prefer-online-coupons-105521