When you think of couponing, your mind immediately flashes to obsessed and questionable super couponers –a middle-aged mom with a nerdy binder, a grocery store shopper with 100 cans of tuna, or someone holding up the checkout line for 10 cents. Alas, this image is no more. Coupon is going mainstream and if you don’t believe me, just as the Kardashians. In an interview, reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian confesses, “Everyone in my family calls me cheap because I’m actually smart with my money” when it comes to her couponing. Savings and promotion finding are no longer devoted to the coupon book carrying fanatic.
Couponing, along with many other previously tedious tasks, has taken on a new life in the age of the internet. Now, both online retailers and brick and mortar stores are seeking to draw in customers with the allure of savings by using digital promotions. And for Millennials, this is a welcomed changed.
Millennials are the benefactors of the Great Recession and also happen to be the most technologically proficient generation around. With high student loans and consumer debt, this generation is looking for a way to squeeze every penny out of a paycheck. With the “every dollar counts” mentality, searching the web for deals is a must.
According to a new report by Valassis, a whopping 9 out of 10 Millennials use coupons. And no, they aren’t sitting down to cut pages out of a newspaper. These tech savvy individuals, like usual, are turning to technology and the internet to solve their problem. Millennials are using sites like RetailMeNot to find instant discounts across the web.
While couponing serves as an excellent way to bargain hunt, Millennials are finding other ways to capture savings too, including flash sales from sites like Gilt and Rue La La. These sites provide time-sensitive deals that are snatched up by cost-conscious shoppers.
Sites like RetailMeNot and Gilt still have their work cut out for them if they are to win over more Millennials. A study by Forrester Consulting shows that Millennials are willing to use new brands and products, but only if the user experience is superb. In other words, the coupon redemption process needs to be automatic and seamless for Millennials to adopt new brands or products. In the age of the internet, the cost of switching between products is greatly reduced, providing more opportunities for customers to get the best product for the lowest cost possible.
The rebirth of couponing as a mainstream consumer activity is here to stay. With the burden of high student loans and consumer debt increasing every year, young shoppers are hungry to hunt for the best deal possible. It is up to the online deal promotion companies to make that process as smooth as possible. Cost-conscious consumers are here to stay.
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