London Drugs official response to the recent "changes"

[MercuryBlue]

I'm surprised it has taken this long for LD to have their 'wrist slapped' for what they were doing. Companies like P&G were being taken advantage by this 'stacking' policy.

...

This would be the MOST that P&G would receive in payment for the item, yet, LD were submitting $15 in coupons which P&G had to reimburse (plus processing fees, etc.).

P&G were directly losing a lot of money from people clearing the shelves at LD paying nothing for the products. How long do you think they'd let this go on?

Ron.

P&G actually has never been 'losing money' because of stacking.

Coupons are a form of marketing, and are budgeted for. So if a company prints 1,000,000 coupons at $2.00 off, they're going to have $2,000,000 sitting in an account specifically for coupon reimbursals. Now, obviously, all 1,000,000 coupons won't get used- a lot will be trashed, recycled, expire, etc. That said, the company EXPECTS to shell out this money as part of the cost of doing business.

As far as P&G is concerned financially, there is absolutely no difference between me using five coupons or five people using one coupon.

For P&G- or any manufacturer- it's a simple matter of not printing off more coupons than you can afford to reimburse. Just as none of us (hopefully) would write a bunch of cheques that couldn't be cashed. That would be bad business.

A lot of what's going on right now (wording-wise) is a reaction, caused by a surge in the popularity of 'couponing' in general (thanks to stupid TLC and that Extreme Couponing show). Maybe some non-couponers have grumbled to them that their products are never in stock because we 'greedy couponers' are clearing the shelves, who knows? The fact is, back when it was only a few people stacking coupons, it wasn't that big a deal. Now that a lot of people are doing it, coupons have a higher overall perceived value. The manufacturers are reacting to the rise in PERCEIVED value (not in actual value, because they're not actually losing money) and seeing an opportunity to spread coupons around a little bit more. By not allowing stacking, couponers won't be likely to 'snatch up' quite as many, leaving more for the people who are just starting to hop on the couponing train. This results in more people buying P&G's products.

[1cheapb*tch]

I'm with you MercuryBlue, I don't think P&G or any other large company is losing any money by offering coupons, this is budgeted into their cost of doing business and the % of people who use coupons is tiny, I think it's like 3% of consumers. Stackers would be an even smaller number. If shelf clearing is the problem then limits should be put on the amounts allowed to be purchased on sale products.

[newfbc]

P&G actually has never been 'losing money' because of stacking.

Coupons are a form of marketing, and are budgeted for. So if a company prints 1,000,000 coupons at $2.00 off, they're going to have $2,000,000 sitting in an account specifically for coupon reimbursals. Now, obviously, all 1,000,000 coupons won't get used- a lot will be trashed, recycled, expire, etc. That said, the company EXPECTS to shell out this money as part of the cost of doing business.

As far as P&G is concerned financially, there is absolutely no difference between me using five coupons or five people using one coupon.

For P&G- or any manufacturer- it's a simple matter of not printing off more coupons than you can afford to reimburse. Just as none of us (hopefully) would write a bunch of cheques that couldn't be cashed. That would be bad business.

A lot of what's going on right now (wording-wise) is a reaction, caused by a surge in the popularity of 'couponing' in general (thanks to stupid TLC and that Extreme Couponing show). Maybe some non-couponers have grumbled to them that their products are never in stock because we 'greedy couponers' are clearing the shelves, who knows? The fact is, back when it was only a few people stacking coupons, it wasn't that big a deal. Now that a lot of people are doing it, coupons have a higher overall perceived value. The manufacturers are reacting to the rise in PERCEIVED value (not in actual value, because they're not actually losing money) and seeing an opportunity to spread coupons around a little bit more. By not allowing stacking, couponers won't be likely to 'snatch up' quite as many, leaving more for the people who are just starting to hop on the couponing train. This results in more people buying P&G's products.

Totally incorrect. P&G prints 1,000,000 coupons expecting maybe 20% to be used. That would be 200,000. These would apply to 200,000 products sold. With your logic, maybe 40% of coupons are getting used, 400,000, but 1/2 the people are using 3 per 1 item. So P&G are paying out for 400,000 coupons and selling ~270,000 items.

There was so much stacking being done at LD for P&G products, LD was probably submitting more coupons to P&G then they were paying for all of the inventory they bought from them.

Ron.

[parkmomma]

I'm with you MercuryBlue, I don't think P&G or any other large company is losing any money by offering coupons, this is budgeted into their cost of doing business and the % of people who use coupons is tiny, I think it's like 3% of consumers. Stackers would be an even smaller number. If shelf clearing is the problem then limits should be put on the amounts allowed to be purchased on sale products.

Absolutely, if p&g was LOSING MONEY then they would not create the coupon books four times per year.

[newfbc]

Absolutely, if p&g was LOSING MONEY then they would not create the coupon books four times per year.

If P&G was NOT losing money.. then maybe they wouldn't be threatening action towards LD?

Ron.

[parkmomma]

If P&G was NOT losing money.. then maybe they wouldn't be threatening action towards LD?

Ron.

The amount of stackers vs. non stackers and the amount of people that use coupons vs. the people that will not even use them if they are in front of their eyes for a product being purchased seems miniscule.

Has p&g made any sort of statement towards LD? Aside from the new wording, not really, so it can be hard to single out LD if we don't have all the information? Unfortunately, it can be so hard because most of us are just the shoppers.

There are still MANY ways to get the stuff for free or almost free using the p&g coupons, mega sales, clearance, overage @ wal mart etc people are just going to have to be more creative.

[MercuryBlue]

There's a difference between losing money and recognizing an opportunity to earn more.

A smart company- period- does not print more coupons than they can afford to reimburse.

Also, stackers make up a teeny-teeny-tiny percentage of buyers.

What's happening is that couponing as a trend is growing and P&G are identifying and opportunity to get more coupons out to more people- who will then buy their products. If I use five coupons to buy one item, P&G hasn't lost any more money than they would if five people have bought one item. HOWEVER, five customers = five opportunities to make someone brand loyal enough to pay full price down the line.

Up until recently, stacking wasn't a big deal because the majority of customers either rarely used coupons or didn't at all. A few stackers here and there didn't even cause a blip on the radar. Now, because of the economic downturn and the popularity of shows like 'Extreme Couponing', the art of saving money has become a trend. Sort of like dogs in purses and those silly Gilligan hats. For a lot of us, it's a lifestyle- but there are many couponers out there that are just starting to test the waters.


As a result? Higher demand for coupons, period. Meaning more money spent on reimbursals. P&G doesn't want to print out fewer coupons (because they want to cash in on the couponing trend)- in fact, if anything, they want to print out more to meet the sudden demand of all the newbie couponers who will buy their products and hopefully become brand loyal.

The point I'm making is that stacking has not cost P&G anything more than what they've already budgeted for. We stackers aren't making them broke- there aren't enough of us to have that big of an effect. Rather, the change in fine print wording seems to be a reaction to the sudden overall increase in demand for coupons. The company doesn't want to have to increase their coupon budget, so instead they're trying to discourage the more 'hard-core' couponers' from taking and using so many.