sudden upheaval
If coupons were slowly dying for years, the pandemic has dealt a sharp blow.
Overnight, supply chains were disrupted and moving from the office to the home made consumers desperate to buy whatever they could get their hands on. Brand taste went out the window. When inflation started to skyrocket last year, retailers not only struggled to keep shelves stocked, they weren’t even sure they’d be able to maintain stable prices until coupons expired.
Spencer Baird, interim CEO of Inmar, said: “This is something we hear very often: ‘We have a budget, we’re ready, but we don’t want to mess with the supply chain until we get the fill rate we need.'”
In 2020, even the use of digital coupons declined for the first time and then recovered. Most of them are tied to a particular retailer, but the coupon industry is working towards a universal standard that allows shoppers to redeem digital coupons at any retailer they sign up with.
But with other incentives growing in popularity, there’s no guarantee that retailers will continue to use coupons.
Lisa Thompson works at Quotient, formerly known as Coupons.com. The company started in 1998 as a website where you could print coupons instead of tearing them out. The company has scaled back its printable coupons, and the Coupons.com app already mostly offers cashback promotions instead.
“Honestly, it’s a dying form of savings, and we know it,” Thompson said of paper coupons. We have been working to make the ‘coupon’ more attractive.”
Many avid coupon providers still prefer the old-fashioned way.
“I agree. It is declining. At some point it will die,” Cataldo said. “I’m not looking forward to it. But it’s not happening as quickly as they thought it would.”
audio produce Palin Bellows.
