Study: 60 percent of customers look for coupons before shopping

Study: 60 percent of customers look for coupons before shopping
Tags: Marketing, Supermarkets & Grocery Stores
May 26, 2010

The shopper experience study currently underway by The Integer Group and M/A/R/C Research revealed in their recent newsletter, The Checkout, that 60 percent of shoppers look for coupons before entering a store. This indicates that coupons are still an important preplanning mechanism, especially within the grocery channel.

Coupons have a considerable influence on brand selection, with 86 percent of shoppers reporting that coupons are at least "somewhat influential." Females tend to be more influenced by coupons than males, with 49 percent indicating that coupons are "extremely" or "very" important, versus males at 39 percent.

"Coupon value is ranked as the highest motivating factor driving a consumer to switch from their preferred product or brand," said Craig Elston, senior vice president, Integer Group. "Shoppers also want simple, clean, and easy-to-redeem coupons, which increases the likelihood of their use by three times."

The top ranked product brands for coupons are P&G, Kraft, Kellogg's, General Mills, and Pillsbury. According to respondents, the top retailer coupons are Bed Bath & Beyond, Target, Macy's, Borders and Costco.

"To compete with the more popular brand-specific coupons, retailers are becoming more aggressive and are increasing shopper awareness by sending out retailer-specific high face-value coupons," said Randy Wahl, executive vice president, M/A/R/C Research. "This entices a customer to choose a retailer for a shopping destination versus going to a store to redeem product coupons, and most likely increases the chance of a return trip to the retailer."

Data for The Checkout comes from a national ongoing survey conducted by Integer and M/A/R/C where consumers are asked about their shopping attitudes, shopping behaviors, and economic outlook. Topics range from criteria shoppers use to select retailers, to which in-store stimulus is most likely to drive purchase, to factors that might lead shoppers to leave an aisle empty-handed. The Checkout is available for download at Integer's blog www.ShopperCulture.com or M/A/R/C's Web site www.MARCresearch.com/thecheckout.

(Photo by BigBeaks)

Reader Comments

Bart Mccleskey

about 20 months ago

The article mentions national brands and Fortune 500 retailers; however, coupons can be just as important for small business retail. Be sure to place a barcode on the coupon that is unique for each publication you use. Your Point of Sale system should then be able to provide reporting so that you can evalute its effectiveness. Questions you should be asking:

- How many coupons redeemed relative to the number mailed

- Attachment rate (i.e. what else did customers who redeemed coupons also buy?).

- Evaluate cost effectiveness. There are many thing to consider: Gross margin on the full basket of goods purchased by customers who redeemed coupons. Reduce that by the cost to deliver the coupons. Traffic lift acheived via coupons. Etc.

Make sure your POS system supports this type of reporting. Check out www.rapidpos.com.