coupons

Updated every Monday!   Subscribe to free weekly newsletter.

No Joke: Ralphs Dropping Double Coupons on April 1

Ralphs, one of the largest supermarket chains in Southern California, is announcing major changes to its reward program this week. They have been teasing customers with advertisements like this:

There is one change, however, that they are not taking out full page ads to promote. Rather, they have buried the announcement in the fine print about something unrelated. And trust me, shoppers won’t be excited by the news.

*MOUSE PRINT:

They are dropping double coupons, a program they instituted over 20 years ago. [For those in parts of the country that don’t have supermarkets that offer double coupons, it works this way. The store will give you twice the face of the coupon when you buy the item, subject to certain limitations.]

Bargain hunters will be very unhappy, not to mention aspiring “extreme couponers”.

On Wednesday, March 28, please visit Consumer World for more details about what Ralphs’ dropping of double coupons could mean for shoppers across the country.

Updated every Monday!   Subscribe to free weekly newsletter.

J.C. Penney Drops Phony “Regular” Price Comparisons

On February 1, 2012, J.C. Penney is revamping its pricing strategy to one where it offers everyday low prices, and only runs sales a couple of times a month.

This is a huge departure for a company that, along with Kohl’s, historically advertised huge discounts from inflated “regular” or “original” prices that they rarely if ever charged. In a New York Times article, JCP’s new CEO even admitted that those regular prices were phony:

Though retailers use promotional pricing to attract shoppers, even if they often vow to move away from it when it gets too pronounced, Mr. Johnson said the method used what he called “fake prices” — artificially inflated prices that are on near-constant markdowns.

In newly released commercials, J.C. Penney, makes fun of its old pricing strategy including endless sales and coupons (and impliedly makes fun of Kohl’s for continuing those practices):

Penney’s new pricing strategy is to reduce regular prices by 40% or more, and makes those the prices customers pay most of the time.

This page from their website reveals how inflated the old “regular” or “original” prices were compared to the everyday selling price now.

*MOUSE PRINT:

It will be interesting to see if consumers, who have been conditioned to only buy things on sale, will respond positively to no longer seeing sales every week with deep discounts along with coupons for additional savings (even though those savings were illusory).

Updated every Monday!   Subscribe to free weekly newsletter.

Get $3 off, $5 off, Free Food … It’s Not that Simple

ssmeat1Advertisers are fond of promoting an offer, seemingly simple in terms, that promises the customer a genuine bargain. What is annoying is that they sometimes tend to leave out a key qualification or catch in the original ad.

Here are three examples.

Advertisement #1

This ad is from the large supermarket chain in the northeast, Stop & Shop.

The lucky reader is being given a chance to get $3 off on any fresh meat. Even when one clicksthrough [see excerpted webpage below], the offer still seems to be as advertised — $3 off, period.

ssmeat21

Only when you go to print the coupon does the truth emerge.

*MOUSE PRINT:

ssmeat31

It certainly is a bit of bait and switch to promote getting three dollars off without in each instance stating clearly that the true offer is three dollars off a $15 purchase of meat.

Advertisement #2

Email ads tend to take a few too many liberties when they use deceptive subject lines, or the content of the email itself promotes the offer in a misleading way.

Pizzeria Uno recently sent out an email saying if you became a “fan” of theirs on Facebook, you would get a $5 off coupon:

Seems like a no-strings attached offer, right? Only after you become a fan of Uno on Facebook, do you see a small disclosure:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Where did the $15 minimum purchase come from? There was no mention of it all in the email. Isn’t this offer really, “Become a fan of Uno on Facebook, and you will get a coupon for $5 off a $15 purchase”?

Advertisement #3

In an email from a small mexican restaurant chain in New England comes this offer:

Great, a free appetizer. I’ll head right over. Trouble is when you go to print the coupon, you learn the truth:

*MOUSE PRINT:

You need a $10 minimum purchase in order to get your freebie. Isn’t the offer really, “Spend $10 at Margarita’s, and get your choice of a free appetizer or dessert”? And, shouldn’t it be advertised that way?

Failure to disclose a material fact in advertising is considered an unfair or deceptive practice under state consumer laws around the country. It is high time that advertisers played straight about these “free” offers. It is just as important to state the requirement, as it is the free bonus.

Incidentally, after Mouse Print* pointed out the problem with their email offer, Margarita’s changed the way they email such offers to include the qualifier “with a $10 purchase.”