Why More of Us Don't Choose to Join The Ranks of The Extreme Couponer

The extreme couponer - such a popular thing to be today - may have to find a new hobby. Retailers like Kroger and Target and many others are beginning to see that the extreme couponer - a phenomenon they completely helped create - is running them out of business. They are beginning to see that it's completely gotten out of hand and they have to do something to stop this if they wish to survive. It may be hard for you to believe that there could be that many people out there who could do this kind of thing.

For instance, where do you think you're likely to find more people of the extreme couponer variety - in the lower middle-class or in the upper-middle-class? Of course, you're going to say that the poorer you are, the more you are going to clip coupons, right?

Wrong. Statistics show that poor people - even people who make up to $30,000 a year - are not likely to be college educated, and they're not likely to really read up on how to go extreme couponing. Apparently, you need a kind of engagement with the Internet and the papers and everything to understand how to do this. Or to even be aware that there is such a thing as extreme couponing.

You see though, there are not that many people out there who make $100,000 a year. They're like the 1%. And you know what? Only 1% of the coupons that stores and manufacturers put out actually get redeemed. That's like near perfect correlation. Only the top 1% clip coupons, and the rest of us don't. You know how much you're saving the manufacturers when you don't clip coupons? It's half a trillion dollars.

Even if it's just 1% of the half trillion dollars worth of coupons that get clipped, the manufacturers or and retailers are crying foul. They want to pull a lot of their coupon offers.

There's another reason why it shouldn't surprise you that millionaires are more likely to be the extreme couponer kind rather than the lower middle-class person. A lot of these coupons are only available on smart phones. And who you think is more likely to own a smartphone?

The moral of the lesson is, that as often as you tend to read and hear about extreme couponing, you have to understand that it's a very small phenomenon. Very few people have the knowledge for how to do this. It is difficult though. Everyone can learn how with just a few minutes put in though, and they can search the Internet and clip coupons as newspapers before they head out shopping. The bargains can be really wonderful.

Daily deal sites Look To Innovate in Their Business Model

Traditionally, the daily deal sites have been mostly about helping you save money (even if said savings have been mostly been in useless things like spa sessions and computer tuneups that you might well do without). Well, that's been the tradition with these businesses for as far back as tradition goes in these things - about two years. These days, people seem to be getting tired of the kinds of offers they usually come up with, and Groupon and the rest of them are trying new ways to tempt their buyers with. For instance, they're trying to get them to spend more to buy higher-quality stuff.

You would never expect a nickel and dime store to offer a co-branded credit card, would you? Well LivingSocial now has a credit card with Chase. You get that card, and there's no annual fee. Not to mention, for every 10 things that you buy on LivingSocial each month, you'll earn $10 worth of credits.

They even have a VIP membership club. You pay $30 to be a member, and they'll give you first dibs on certain special sales. You'll also get to buy into any deal after it's expired. So all you need to do is to get this membership, and it's like you’re King of the Castle.

For daily deal sites that struggle to stand apart from the crowd, loyalty cards and credit cards are a great way to get a better class of consumer and to inspire a little bit of loyalty. A quick look around the Internet is enough to see that the buzz about the review sites has died down. These businesses need to either find new ways to keep consumers interested, or they need to get ready to  fall by the wayside.

What makes premium memberships even more attractive to the daily deal sites is that it geives them the opportunity to really observe close-up how the higher-end consumer behaves. Customer behavior is very valuable. Researchers study this data and there's a good bit of money this. With this kind of insight, the daily deal sites will be able to structure their deals in much more attractive ways.

Of course, things might work out well for the daily deal sites in the end if they keep trying . Butto evolve their business this aggressively. Whether it's good news for the VIP members, is a completely different matter. If the regular daily deal member routinely gets 75% off on everything, what can the VIP members actually hope for that's all that great? This might actually work against the daily dealbusinesses. When they offer their special deals to their VIP members first, won't this annoy the regular members? When it's their turn, they will never have any left.

Like to Clip Coupons and Use Them with Devious Cleverness? Not Anymore

Extreme couponing is a term that's really become popular. Article after article and TV show after TV show will go and talk about how you should clip coupons with the express aim of hitting retailers and stores for all they've got.

Well, there's this one little flaw here in all these extreme couponing  plans that everyone teaches you. They take these rules for how to coupon effectively a little too seriously. They treat them like they're the laws of nature and theyy are forever.

Well, the retailers out there are completely mad at people who clip coupons for extreme couponing strategies. They never intended for you to combine offers and coupons like this. And they're about put an end to it.

Extreme couponing started as a kind of secret underground movement. People began to learn about all the ways they could combine coupons from the manufacturer, the store and the Internet to make a serious dent in  what they spent at the store. Sometimes, they would even buy in bulk and completely wipe out the profit margin that the retailer had.

With time, this became a popular thing and not very secret anymore. It's turned into such a mass movement now that retailers are going to have to do something to stay in business. They really weren't set up to deal with people who played them the way Great Depression families did.

The first thing they are cutting off is how you combine different coupon offers and get triple-off savings. Supermarkets like Kroger are saying that you cannot stack coupons any more. There are other supermarkets that are following, too. Places like Food Lion are cutting off extreme couponers and any attempts to stack coupons.

Others like Walgreens and Rite Aid will allow stacking and extreme couponing, but they won't way you do it for everything. Walmart doesn't want more than one copy of a printed home coupon, and Target says that you can't come in with two twofer coupons, and get both items free.

It isn't just that the economic climate is kind of low-key now and people really need to do this kind of thing. It's also that the manufacturers and the stores kind of stoked the flames themselves, outdoing one another with more and more coupons.

Now, they're at a place where they see that they've gone too far. If they roll it back like this, they are going to alienate shoppers. If they keep doing this, it's going to be hard for them to stay in business. That's a tough call.