I was at the grocery store yesterday and I got stuck behind a woman with COUPONS. I hate coupons.
Now I'm sympathetic to the fact that everyone isn't a rich doctor like me (yeah right), but regardless, I hate coupons at supermarkets. And this comes from someone who, when I get a "free card" coupon from Shutterfly, I immediately go to Shutterfly, make a card and send it out. (Total saved: $2.67) So I appreciate that two cans of catfood for the price of one is a deal that cannot be passed up.
What I don't appreciate is the way coupons slow everything down. I feel that there MUST be a better way. I already have a Safeway card... you bastards have my address and phone number and jeans size, why do you expect me to also pour over the newspapers in search of 33 cents off a quart of milk?
Incentives are great. Maybe when I've spent $1000 with the shopping card, I can have $10 off my purchase. Instead of having to cut a coupon out with a scissors and have it inevitably refuse to scan in.
You know what I'm talking about with the scanners. Have you ever been behind someone in line who had coupons and every single one of them scanned in without a problem? I haven't. Yesterday, one of the woman's coupons didn't work, and of course, they had to call the manager over. The problem? The coupon expired that day, so... yeah, I don't understand either.
That's another thing, people with coupons don't read the fine print or they don't sort their coupons prior to the grocery trip, so there's always one or two coupons that's expired or doesn't work for their purchase, and this requires several minutes of squinting at the coupon and explanation to the customer.
I just feel like in this day and age, with our iPhones and our iPads and our rock and roll music, there's got to be a better way to give discounts than forcing people to collect little scraps of paper.
And don't get me started on people who bring checkbooks into the supermarket.
This is why I go grocery shopping in the wee hours of the morning or late a night when no one else is around. People at grocery stores drive me slightly crazy.
ReplyDeleteI was in the checkout line with my son a few months ago and the person in front of us was paying with a checkbook. He asked what it was since he'd never seen one before. :-D
ReplyDeleteKarma, because you complained you will now be destined to be stuck behind the coupon queen with a checkbook.
ReplyDeleteps. I like coupons
The worst is when you have a perfectly good coupon and a power-hungry cashier looking for an argument. I don't know if you have Ritter's frozen custard where you are, but around here, they have some of the best ice cream you can get. Anyway, I got an email coupon where you could get a free sundae. Awesome! So being the conscientious person I am, I decided to just show them the coupon on my phone rather than waste paper printing it (not to mention I was out of ink and didn't want to spend 50 bucks on a cartridge). I took my phone up to show the coupon, and the lady at the window said "Oh. You can't do that. I have to have the coupon." I tried to use common sense to plead with her (pointless, I know) that the coupon had a unique identifying number and that it would be impossible to copy it. Regardless, she continued to exercise her power over the distribution of ice cream and refused to give me my free sundae. Therefore, I very graciously left and now enjoy ice cream at the other Ritter's across town.
ReplyDeleteUgh, I'm right there with you. My local grocery store has a deal running right now where they give out STAMPS -- like, one tiny little stamp (maybe 1/4" by 1/2") for each $15 or something that you spend. And you're supposed to collect these tiny stamps and glue them in a little booklet and when you collect enough you can get a toaster or something.
ReplyDeleteWhen they started the promo, I literally said, "wait, is this 1980??" I held up my club card thing and said, "You people know EXACTLY how much money I spend here, and exactly what I spend it on, and you could be keeping track of all this in the COMPUTER, and yet I'm supposed to keep track of these tiny little stickers and stick them in this ridiculous booklet??" Then I realized I didn't need a new toaster and I just politely declined the stamps.
Jacob.... The problem is, at least with manufacturers coupons and the like, they don't get reimbursed if they don't send the little slip of paper to corporate or whoever. They need to have some way of showing that they gave out the free sundae because the person had a coupon and not just because it was their friend, or because they wanted to.
ReplyDeleteCan I just say, your Weekly Whine is probably my favorite thing you blog about?
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, don't you love the coupons people who would bring their entire binder of coupons. The ones that know what they're doing aren't bad. It's the people who don't know what they're doing that take forever!
ReplyDeletehaha have you ever watched Extreme Couponing? It's nuts! They are crazy organized, but I think people know not to get in line behind someone with 4 carts of stuff anyways. I agree shopping at night is the best! No crying kids who don't want to be at the grocery store, and no old people blocking the aisles :p
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother in law, sister in law and mother in law are all super-couponers. The last time they went out they ended up with 110 packs of diapers, 50 bottles of body wash, 20 bottles of shampoo, dozens of razors, and... well you get the pictures. They spent a total of $22. I'm not kidding, they are absolutely crazy. Our christmas presents from all of them are years worth of toiletries, which is pretty cool considering how expensive all that crap is.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest issue with the grocery store are the people who expect you to get out of their way IMMEDIATELY, even as you are reaching for an item on the shelf. Last week, I almost threw down with some woman who did this. I said to her, "Do you think you could possibly wait 30 seconds or maybe even go around?" She totally freaked out at me and told me how rude I was. I was like, "I'm sorry her royal highness might have to wait her turn for once," or something along those lines. Another time, some lady actually shoved me out of the way when I was reaching for a carton of milk in the refrigerator. Her complaint? I was moving too slowly.
ReplyDeleteOMDG: Haha, I do that to old people constantly. When I see an elderly couple blocking the dairy aisle, having a debate about what kind of yogurt to buy, I know I have to be aggressive.
ReplyDeleteKrogers has started a brilliant way to handle in-store coupons -- you pick them out on a website and they are electronically loaded onto your "Krogers card."
ReplyDeleteNow this of course gives the little data-mining advertising sales gnomes more details to play with and theoretically spam me with. But the flip side is that I can get $2 off my laundry detergent without having to do anything, and the cashier doesn't have to spend a half hour scanning/entering little scraps of paper. The silly cash-register-computer scans my card, sees what I bought and *poof*.
Poof is grand.
Whenever I worked at Target and coupons didn't work I just let them through anyways. I didn't care, the customers got through quickly, and I could get away from the register at light speed and back to hiding in lingerie.
ReplyDeleteBack when I was living in Cleveland there was a supermarket that didn't allow credit cards. You either had to pay by cash or cheque.
ReplyDeleteI didn't go there very often.
At the risk of taking you literally, this is called "Price Discrimination" in economics.
ReplyDeleteEven the social cost of scorn from other members of society for slowing down the line is part of the price discrimination. These coupon clippers are more price sensitive than you.
It's all very similar to "Free Trade" coffee or "Shade Grown" coffee, which is a voluntary price signal that goes in the other direction.