Four Questions: Is a 'Short-Sale' Mentality Hurting Couponing?
A disconnect between companies and consumers about the purpose of coupon-driven bargain shopping may be putting certain people at a disadvantage.

By La Monica Everett-Haynes, University Relations – Communications
Sept. 1, 2016


While manufacturers have traditionally released coupons for the primary intention of coaxing new customers into trying products or brands, contemporary buyers more readily associate coupons specifically with cost savings.

This represents an important disconnect, with manufacturers having a "short-sale" mentality to drive product while consumers — loyal customers included — yearn for sizable savings. And this could mean problems for the future of couponing, said Jennifer Andrews, who earned her doctorate from the University of Arizona's John & Doris Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences in May.

Andrews spent years working with Anita Bhappu, an associate professor of family and consumer sciences, who has led flagship studies on coupon usage across the nation. Bhappu and her collaborators have found that affluent, white women are the most common coupon users, and that the more regular coupon users have household incomes of more than $75,000.

In her own work, Andrews has found that the process for collecting and redeeming coupons has remained largely unchanged despite advances in technology. People have to search for coupons. Then clip them out, or download them. Then remember to file them and take them to the store. And then remember to hand them over in the checkout line.

This process — arduous, time-consuming and often frustrating — is a long-standing hindrance that must be resolved if coupons are to become more accessible for certain users and a less cumbersome process for all users, said Andrews, whose dissertation explored the motivational barriers people experience when using coupons.

Andrews, now a researcher in the UA Department of Pediatrics, took time to answer some questions about the world of couponing.

Q: What are some of the prevailing concerns and challenges associated with couponing today?

A: Whether it is paper or electronic, you still have to get the coupons. Even if you are in the store. Even if there is a special tag you can scan. You still have to find the coupon and download it or clip it in some way. We keep coming out with these new digital versions of coupons, but the process for redeeming them has not changed. And it still takes a great deal of time to use coupons. And within the industry, there is not much talk about the process. If the industry goal is to increase item sales, the process works fine. But if the goal is to try and get new customers and reward those new customers, manufacturers are going about it the wrong way. They are basically targeting short sales, trying to move products during certain seasons, or trying to get a temporary bump in sales. The risk? This isn't going to make a significant change in their overall clientele. They are not going to build new cadres of frequent users.

Q: Why is it concerning that people hold different perceptions and may have different benefits associated with using coupons?

A: Frequent users have changed their behaviors. They accept that their grocery-shopping trip is going to be hours long. There is a lot of research showing that frequent users are coming from higher-income households, which means the amount of time it takes to coupon isn't so much of a time and resource suck. Also, a lot of frequent users are moms who want to stretch their household budget farther, and so they are using coupons to supplement their income. They feel that they are contributing to the household income despite the amount of time it takes to do so. I define infrequent coupon users as those who have not used a coupon in the last 30 days. If you are working two jobs, the process is a time suck. Also, there is a disparity there. Coupons are usually targeted at boxed and pre-packaged food and not for fresh items like dairy, fruits and vegetables. And it seems the majority of apps coming out are targeting frequent users, which offer the ability to build grocery lists, match lists to coupons and determine which stores have the best overall cost. Most other users just go to the stores that are easiest and best for them.

Q: Despite differing experiences and benefits, you acknowledge that frequent and infrequent users will complain about the couponing process — even with the introduction of digital coupons and other technologies meant to make coupons more accessible. What are the potential implications of this?

A: With digital coupons becoming a rapidly growing practice, it is important to determine whether or not this new coupon format might contribute to behavior change in current non-users or infrequent users of coupons. As we begin to have technology replace regular services, the measure of whether or not it is working is whether or not it adds value. Like ATMs instead of tellers. Or airline ticket checking. Or the self checkout at the grocery store. As an industry, manufacturers and companies have to rethink the purpose of coupons now. It's the same as when coupons were picking up speed during the 1970s and 1980s, but with technology it's different now. If they are trying to get new customers, they need to make couponing easier.

Q: What connects your earlier investigations of coupon usage with your current role as a multidisciplinary researcher in pediatrics at the UA?

A: I was originally interested in learning about how people use technology in ways that were not intended; how people adapt technology to their own needs. In pediatrics, I am trying to understand why people choose not to follow physician recommendations. Right now, I am trying to understand how to keep a new population of people born with a heart defect healthy. This population is new because of new heart surgery techniques that were developed in the late 1970s to change their survival from death in the first few years of life to survival into adulthood. I am also trying to understand why these people decide to stop seeing their cardiologists, usually around pre-adolescence. So, my focus now is on health disparities — but it is similar to the coupon research because in essence I am trying to understand the motivation behind seemingly small decisions being made that we don't really think about but can have an impact on our lives.

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Resources for the media

Jennifer Andrews

UA College of Medicine – Tucson

520-626-6816

jandrews@peds.arizona.edu