Green Bay Press Gazette : Coupons grow business, produce savings in hard times

This quote from a recent article in the Green Bay Press Gazette highlights the increased importance of coupons to consumers and businesses alike brought on by the recession.

The recession has sent more people looking for coupons and specials as businesses use those tools to protect their bottom lines.

"With the economy, people are looking out more and more for these coupons than they ever have," Senn said. "I don't make a dollar unless I get people through the door. You have to get them through the door."

Coupon processor Inmar Inc. said coupon redemption earlier this year was up 27 percent in 2009 compared to 2008 — because in large part of the recession.

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New York Times : Web Coupons Know Lots About You, and They Tell

Coupons from the Internet are the fastest-growing part of the coupon world--their redemption increased 263 percent to about 50 million coupons in 2009, according to the coupon-processing company Inmar. Using coupons to link Internet behavior with in-store shopping lets retailers figure out which ad slogans or online product promotions work best, how long someone waits between searching and shopping, even what offers a shopper will respond to or ignore.

The coupons can, in some cases, be tracked not just to an anonymous shopper but to an identifiable person: a retailer could know that Amy Smith printed a 15 percent-off coupon after searching for appliance discounts at Ebates.com on Friday at 1:30 p.m. and redeemed it later that afternoon at the store.

Original Post:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/business/media/17coupon.html

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