'Extreme Couponing' should give retailers, brands and tech providers nightmares

'Extreme Couponing' should give retailers, brands and tech providers nightmares
Tags: Loyalty Programs, Marketing, POS, Supermarkets & Grocery Stores, Technology
April 8, 2011

I'm normally loathe to go anywhere near reality television — and has there ever been a more dishonest or inaccurate label for a genre than that one? — but I was captivated this week by the new season of "Extreme Couponing" on TLC.

You may have already been aware of the "coupon ninja" phenomenon, fascinating cases such as the guy who filled his house with food for $1 a day, or the mom who got $90 worth of stuff from a pharmacy for $5. It's all done via an arcane mix of coupon doubling, loyalty program trickery and careful timing — a mix that, frankly, I still haven't wrapped my head around. I mean, in some of these cases, the shopper gets the total bill down to a negative number — yes, the store pays them to take their products.

Of course, you have to applaud the ingenuity and resourcefulness that goes into this. I think of myself as a reasonably smart guy, but some of the deals these people pull off absolutely flummox me.

But I want to know how retailers and brands, along with the companies that make the hardware and software for checkout and loyalty, allow this to happen. There is clearly a technology failure going on here of massive proportions. What on earth are you collecting all of this consumer data for if your software can't spot something simple like a coupon for a specific brand of cereal being redeemed on another brand that is currently on sale, resulting in a negative price?

It feels odd discussing couponing on a site that regularly tells retailers how discounting is a bad thing. And I'm a family man, and I understand the urge and the need to save money. But at some point, retailers and the brands they carry are going to have to muster up some courage, look at the customer and say "No, you can't have something for nothing. That's not how it works. There is value in what we provide you, and it is fair and appropriate that you pay for that value."