Value-centric Shoppers Save $3.7 Billion in 2010 Using Coupons

LIVONIA, Mich., Jan. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Valassis (NYSE: VCI), one of the nation's leading media and marketing services companies, announced today that shoppers saved $3.7 billion with coupons in 2010, according to the Annual Topline U.S. CPG Coupon Facts Report for Year-end 2010, released by NCH Marketing Services, Inc., a Valassis company.  An additional $200 million was saved in 2010, representing a 5.7% increase from 2009.

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Biz Report : 54% of retailers to put m-coupon systems in place in next 12 months

Half of all the retailers surveyed reported that, within the year, they will have systems in place to allow coupons to be dispatched to customers' mobile phone and scanned at point-of-sale.

Recent research in the U.K. and U.S. by mobile transaction network mBlox found that British shoppers use mobile coupons more than their American counterparts - 29% vs. 15%.

However, these figures are destined to rise as 71% of British and 42% of American consumers expressed an interest in having coupons delivered to their mobile handsets.

"2011 is poised to be a huge year in the advancement of mobile for retail," said Sean M. Alexander, technology analyst at IHL Group.

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Digital Coupon Use Increased By More Than 59.9 Percent Through September 30, 2010, Versus The Same Period In 2009

MINNEAPOLIS, MN October 20, 2010 – For the calendar year-to-date (CYTD) period ending September 30, 2010, the number of digital coupon events increased by 59.9 percent versus the same period in 2009 across key websites tracked by Marx, a Kantar Media solution.

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AdAge : Coupon Clipping Stages a Comeback

The recession didn't help many industries, but it may prove the savior of print coupons. Even consumers in their 20s and 30s appear to be adopting the coupon-clipping habit, defying what once looked like long odds, declining newspaper circulation and the growth of digital media. 

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Use Coupons? You're Smarter, Richer and Hipper Too!

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a recent Deals.com poll (conducted by MyType), smart, rich (making between 100-200k a year), socially responsible people who value the environment, are extroverted and imaginative use online coupons.  Those consumers who are neurotic, angry, insecure, careless procrastinators who make less than $50,000 a year do not.

Do the online coupons make you smarter, richer and more imaginative?

Deals.com CEO, Cotter Cunningham has some ideas to explain this trend – "Online coupon use is an informed mindset.  Once you learn how easy it is to save money with our coupons, you wouldn't consider shopping online without them.  But most folks today don't realize there is a coupon for just about every store where they shop online. As the study shows, liberal, rich, ladies in the Northeast are already saving money by using online coupons.  Deals.com's mission is to spread the word on online coupons, so that everyone in this great country can save money shopping online."

Profile of a coupon "lover":

• People with household incomes in excess of $100,000 per year are roughly two times more likely to be coupon lovers.  
• People who identify themselves as extraverts and imaginative are respectively 47% and 25% more likely than others to favor online coupons.  
• Women are 67% more likely than men to be coupon lovers.
• People who consider the environment of utmost importance are the most likely to be coupon lovers – 37% more likely than others.  

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USA Today : Retailers, restaurants offer deals as more of us pinch pennies

Check out this article from USA Today on how coupons have grown on importance during the recesiion and will remail so as the American consumer mindset has undergone changes that will last past the recession.

Quotes from the article of particular importance to Coupon Marketing Professionals:

Three years ago, 48% of consumers bought most products on sale. Today, it's 53%, says NPD Group, a retail market researcher. Last year, nearly seven in 10 consumers shopped in a discount, big-volume or off-price store, compared with five in 10 three years ago, NPD says.

Coupon use at Whole Foods is up 325% over two years, Robb says. And same-store sales were up 2.5% last quarter from a the same quarter last year.

"Everyone looks at the money they spend very differently than they did three years ago," Denny's CEO Nelson Marchioli says. "This generation is forever changed."

"We said then — and we say now — this is not a speed bump in the economy," marketing chief [Starbucks] Terry Davenport says. "It's a fundamental shift in how consumers think about how they spend their money."

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Adotas : Elevating the Mobile Love Affair With Coupons

Great article by edo Interactive CMO Meaghan Schaefer outlining the growth opportunities and challenges that still need to be worked out in the mobile coupon space.  I especially likes the following taxonomy of redemption methodologiues from the article.

Today, there are at least five options for redeeming a mobile coupon. At this point in the industry’s evolution it’s critical to understand how the system you choose will work on the back end. Here are the most common redemption methods:

– Consumer presents phone displaying a discount offer and cashier rings up purchase with a discount

– Cashier manually enters a code displayed in the mobile coupon to generate a discount

– Cashier scans a barcode embedded in the mobile coupon

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Axcess News : Online coupons out-clip print

According to Inmar, a coupon processing settlement provider, coupon redemption in the fourth quarter of 2008 grew nearly 10% compared to the fourth quarter of 2007, marking the first jump in redemption since the early 90s. The Winston-Salem NC company credits the uptick in coupon redemption to the economy, yet gains in online coupon redemption has out-clipped newspapers 17-to-1, according to Coupons.com.

"When everyone started hearing reports of record unemployment, drops in consumer confidence and losses on Wall Street, coupon redemption volume started to go up," said Bob Carter, president of Inmar CMS Promotion Services.

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Market Watch : Coupons.com Saves Consumers More Than $300 Million in 2008

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Mar 02, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- With the economy driving more shoppers to search out savings, interest in online coupons has spiked, helping spur record growth for Coupons.com in 2008. The world leader in digital coupons more than doubled the amount of savings printed from the site and helped more than 38 million consumers print coupons. The Company also drove innovation in the printable coupon market with key product developments and partnerships.

"We believe shoppers will continue to seek out savings everywhere they can find them as the economy further tightens in 2009," said Steven Boal, CEO of Coupons.com. "With local newspapers struggling, many consumers will lose access to their Sunday coupons. As a result, household brand name companies are increasingly looking to deliver savings to those consumers online. Our goal in 2009 is to bring coupons to as many digital platforms as possible so that consumers can readily find savings in these difficult times."

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Daily Times : Are coupons making a comeback?

Although once viewed as a weekly chore for tightwads or low-income families, coupon clipping may again become mainstream, according to a 2008 study released by the New York-based firm Scarborough Research.

The study found 27 percent of households nationwide are clipping coupons, including households from all income brackets. That number is up 5 percent from two years ago for coupons clipped from newspapers.

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