The future of coupons, promo codes and extreme couponing
Coupon codes and promo codes enable customers to receive massive discounts on regular priced items. Extreme couponing allows carts filled with merchandise to exit the door for pennies. The economic outlook is getting worse by the month and it has more and more people wondering how to save money and they are looking for "tips on how to coupon?" All these discounts and frankly the whole trend of coupon shopping is doomed.
Why are coupons going out of fashion? There are plenty of reasons to predict the doom of both printed coupons and digital coupon codes. New technologies are always a pushing the envelope of what is possible. Limiting fraud is another reason. Finally, new types of promoting and discounting goods will mix and form a new way of buying everyday items.
Technology such as behavioral pricing, advanced buyer segmentation, and dynamic demand pricing enable online retailers to cost discriminate at an even larger scale than before. By combining the huge quantity of customer data available in merchant databases like purchase history, customer demographics, and social media; online merchants can offer unique merchandise at even more personal pricing to every site visitor. Imagine that you tweeted to your friends that you want to buy a brand new PC, and you post about this on your weblog or in a comment section. Let's say a company named AllCoupons4U, knows that you have looked for computers lately. It finds the links to your blog comments that track back to your profile and in case you decide to visit their online store they can dynamically increase the prices on all laptops offered, since they are aware you are keen on getting one. Using browser history, demographics and a complete purchase history, a service provider can up sell goods by bundling a wide variety of items you have bought or are related on them.
Dynamic pricing isn't restricted to web sites and the online world. The New York Mets plan to roll out dynamic pricing for seats across the whole stadium. There has always been a premium on games in which the rival team is has a large following or simply big star power, but imaging getting a lower cost as a result of a star pitcher getting injured or paying extra because the team is suddenly in contention in the month of September. How long will it take before this spreads to grocery stores? Picture paying a little bit more for a bag of Cheerios because Corn Flakes are out of stock, or a quarter more per gallon of gas on the way back from work at 5 o'clock versus the value of the same fuel at eleven o'clock at night.
Advanced loyalty cards and mobile phone refunds can even change how coupons and discounts work in the real world. Electronic discounts stored on a loyalty card or in account won't require shoppers to bring printed coupons with them to the shop. They may simply be credited automatically during the checkout process. Eventually clients will be allowed to manage their own loyalty accounts online, and select which coupons, deals, and particular savings to use directly from the merchants or the sponsor. Mobile refunds will work similarly - with deductions being credited to accounts, directly after visiting a promotion site or liking a merchant, an item or the store they shop at, on their Facebook page or another social media site. All this additional customer data will give merchants the possibility to reward their most devoted clients with special offers, and also allow then to better handle their in store inventory.
Besides allowing more focused advertising, preventing fraud and abuse is necessary for both merchants and shoppers. Brick and mortar shops have started to limit coupon use on the basis of a shopping trip, the account used and month-to-month savings. Extreme couponing, where carts loaded to the brim with product end up costing pennies, after occupying the check-out for 30 to 60 minutes, is going out of fashion. Double coupon days are done, as is the practice of accepting of printed coupons from the internet. The sharing of coupons and buying of multiple papers for the coupons will end, as retailers again limit the use of specific coupons and whole-sale coupons over long stretches of time such as a rolling 3 month period. Additionally, for the printed coupons which might be distributed, there will surely be applied new anti-counterfeiting protections, such as Nano-holes that present a shiny shimmering impact. With the individualized digital discount, customer tailored promo codes, and the uniquely coded paper coupons - sharing, buying, selling or duplicating these will be unimaginable, or at least beyond the power of the informal shopper.
Coupons might not disappear, in their present form, but they are definitely doomed due to the rampant fraud and abuse by the few extreme coupon users. Expect more personalized and unique discounts offered to an individuals' account or mobile phone. You can be sure that retailer will use some form of uniquely signed 2-D bar-codes on coupons that include the user account, method of coupon distribution (paper, email, discount site, etc.), and location of store offering the discounts.