Savvy shoppers like saving money anywhere they can, whether it’s on clothing, travel or at restaurants. But day in and day out, what they really want to save money on, is their groceries.
To kick off National Coupon Month a few weeks ago, Valassis released the results of a survey that said 93% of respondents are interested in finding coupons for groceries, making it the top category for couponing. Now, to wrap up National Coupon Month, Coupons.com owner Quotient Technology is revealing exactly what types of grocery savings are most popular among couponers.
So far this year, Quotient says the most frequently-selected printable and digital coupons on Coupons.com and from its retail partners, are for laundry detergent. 92 million detergent coupons worth almost $261 million have been clipped so far, with Texas alone accounting for nearly 10% of that total.
Next on the list is hair conditioner, with 42 million coupons clipped. While that total is less than half the number of detergent coupons clipped, the savings per item were greater – $192 million in all. Texas once again scooped up about 10% of the total coupons available.
Everybody needs toilet paper – but not everybody wants to flush their money away by paying full price. 42 million toilet paper coupons worth a total of $81 million have been clipped so far this year, with – you guessed it – thrifty Texans taking the top spot again.
Deodorant coupons came in fourth place, with 35.7 million coupons clipped for a total savings of $82 million. Maybe Texas isn’t quite so concerned with smelling good, since California claimed first place in deodorant coupon clipping this time, followed closely behind by Virginia.
You may be wondering right about now – don’t these people eat? Saving money on household and personal care items is nice, but you can’t feed soap and TP to your family. So rounding out the top five items on Quotient’s list is, finally, a food item – cereal. 33.6 million cereal coupons worth $77 million have been clipped so far this year, with California and Virginia again claiming the title of top cereal savers.
According to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American shopper spends $177 a year on laundry and cleaning supplies, $762 on personal care products (and services) – and $4,363 a year on edible groceries. So, when it comes to digital and printable coupons at least, it appears the category in which shoppers are spending the most, is where they’re saving the least.
Inmar’s recent Mid-Year Promotion Industry Analysis found that food coupons made up a mere 28.1% of all coupons available so far this year, about half as many as those available around 15 years ago, when there were an equal number of food and nonfood coupons. But food coupons still represent nearly half of all coupons redeemed, which suggests that couponers want more food coupons than they’re being given.
So Quotient’s stats may indicate that couponers are saving money on household and personal care items, largely because those are the coupons that are most widely available. If there were more coupons for food, it’s possible that more food items would appear on the top-five list.
No matter which coupons they’re clipping and what products they’re buying, digital coupons appear to be most popular among shoppers in a somewhat unlikely place. While internet usage statistics show that Mississippi has one of the lowest rates of connectivity, Mississippi is tied with Virginia as the states where shoppers have clipped the most digital coupons so far this year – an average of 12 per person.
And old analog habits apparently die hard. Insert coupons that appear in your Sunday newspaper remain the most popular type of coupons by far. But even as more shoppers go digital, they’re still in the habit of clipping coupons on Sunday mornings. Quotient found that the most popular time for perusing digital and printable coupons is on Sundays between 8am and 11am.
So as National Coupon Month winds down this week, there haven’t exactly been a whole lot of celebrations to mark the occasion. But if your stockpile is now well-supplied with discount detergent, toilet paper and cereal – perhaps not having to pay full price is all the celebration you need.
Image source: Quotient Technology
