Welcome to Ask the Couponing Pros, our recurring column featuring Heather and Joanie from The Krazy Coupon Lady. Have a question for the ladies? Post them with the hashtag #aycouponquestions and they might get featured here!
QUESTION: Why are some coupons available in some areas of the country and not in others?
ANSWER: All newspaper coupon inserts are not created equal. You may have visited our site (TheKrazyCouponLady.com) and found a hot deal using a specific newspaper coupon, only to find out you didn’t get that coupon in your inserts. It’s super frustrating! When I first started to coupon, I could not understand why coupons were in some papers and not in others. Then I figured it out. It’s all about marketing. Now I have strategies to finding those coupons when they aren’t in the paper.
Why doesn’t my newspaper insert have the coupon I want?
Last week, my sister called and asked if she could have the $2.00 Nutella coupon from my paper. Kroger was featuring the 8-ounce jar of Nutella on sale for $2.48. With the coupon, Nutella would only cost $0.48. At over 75% savings, that’s a hot deal worth stocking up! While we live in the same town, my sister and I live 20 minutes apart from one another. We get the same newspaper. Yet, I did not get the coupon. Why?
Here are the 3 reasons why this might happen to you:
1. Regional differences
Advertisers strategically place coupons in certain regions. For example, a coupon for hot chocolate placed in Minneapolis’s Star Tribune in February would be clipped and redeemed significantly more often than if it ran in The Arizona Republic. This example shows the idea behind why coupons are placed in specific areas. Manufacturers use coupons as a way to track shopping habits of consumers.
As in the case of my sister and I, we live merely 20 minutes apart yet only one of us got the Nutella coupon. The advertiser with Nutella more than likely wanted to increase the sales of Nutella in that specific area of the city. Clearly the people on that side of town have yet to discover the amazing taste of Nutella on warm toast!
2. Value differences
Companies will also offer different values to coupons in regions. I discovered that higher-value coupons appear in areas where sales are naturally high. On our blog, we often hear from readers across the country that may have received a coupon for $1.00 on a deal we posted using that same coupon that’s worth $0.50. The good news is that the coupon is distributed in all areas, but it can be frustrating to see how much the value differs.
Also, when there’s a new product and a company wants new customers, higher-value coupons are offered. Some of my best savings happen with new product launches. When a potato chip company introduces a new flavor, expect to find coupons with a high value. The more companies that are aggressively competing for your business, the better for you!
3. Brand of newspapers
Typically, the larger the circulation of a newspaper, the better the coupons. As a consumer, that means the larger papers will likely contain more and higher-value coupons than their lesser-read counterparts. Advertisers want coupons to be clipped and redeemed because that increases sales of the products.
In the Chicago area, there are several large newspapers to choose from including the Chicago Tribune. When I lived near Chicago, I received the smaller, local paper. Often times this paper had less than half of the coupons that were in the Tribune. The higher the circulation of a paper in one area can result in more coupons being used and larger sales of the product.
Where can I get a coupon if it’s not in the newspaper inserts?
This is a question I get asked a lot. Fortunately there are options to getting the coupon you need if it’s not in your paper. I refuse to spend a lot of time searching for a coupon, so the first place I check if I’m looking for a specific coupon is online. Manufacturers have identical coupons on sites like Coupons.com, RedPlum.com and SmartSource.com. If I still can’t locate the coupon I need, I ask friends and family if they have it in their paper. I also recommend joining a local Facebook group page. Local couponers can trade individual coupons or even entire inserts. To find a group near you type in “[Your city name] couponing” in a Facebook search.
While the coupon world is leaning heavily to printable and digital coupons, the value of using newspaper coupons will continue to stay solid. It’s a traditional means to saving money on products you enjoy. If you love coupons like we do, there’s a certain euphoric feeling of opening that Sunday paper, finding the inserts and browsing the coupons! Have fun and enjoy your savings!
— Heather and Joanie, The Krazy Coupon Lady
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Photo credit: Chris Potter/Flickr
