“Extreme couponing is back. But it’s on TikTok this time,” the Marketplace radio program once declared. “How ‘extreme couponing’ evolved from TLC to TikTok,” Michigan’s MLive echoed. And People magazine once featured a profile titled “Extreme Couponing Mom Uses TikTok to Teach Others How to Save”.
As couponing has evolved, so has couponers’ preferred platform for finding and sharing deals. In ancient times, there were mailed newsletters and magazines. The internet brought us blogs, then social media users created couponing communities on Facebook and Instagram, and the smartphone generation took couponing to a new level on TikTok.
Now coupon influencers who made a name for themselves on TikTok, and their millions of followers, are having to confront the looming and increasingly real possibility they won’t be able to share deals or learn the ins and outs of couponing on TikTok for much longer.
Barring a favorable Supreme Court decision, an extension of the deadline, or an eleventh-hour move to sell the Chinese app to an American owner, a ban on TikTok is set to take effect this coming Sunday, January 19th. While the law that imposes the ban pertains only to new downloads and app updates, meaning TikTok would still work for existing users for a while, TikTok’s latest plans reportedly are to block access to the app altogether for American users once the ban takes effect.
Some TikTokers are holding out hope that the app will survive. But many of the most-followed TikTok coupon influencers are already saying their goodbyes.
“Even though TikTok is being banned, no app can erase the memories we’ve created, the laughter we’ve shared, or the community we have built,” Melyssa of couponing4beginners told her 1.1 million followers. “From the bottom of our hearts, we would like to thank you for being the best part of this journey.”
“Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for all of the love and the support… And now we might see this just all fall apart,” Rachel the “Curly Couponer” told her 101,000 followers. “I’m sad. I don’t want to see this go… I’ve helped so many people, and that helps my heart and my mental state.”
“I have worked so hard to grow this community. And I love each and every one of you. And I cannot imagine losing this all,” Haley of savingwithhaley told her own 108,000 followers. “I am very grateful that this is not my only source of income, because I know so many couponers that are content creators that it is, or other creators just in general, that this is their sole income and they’re going to lose that.”
Indeed, coupon TikTokers have not only taught their followers how to save money, but many of them have made quite a bit of money of their own, through affiliate marketing and sponsorships. So they’re urging the fan base they’ve spent years building, to follow them onto other platforms.
“If you have Instagram, if you have Facebook, most of us are going to be posting over there, even though it’s not anywhere as cool as TikTok,” Rae of RaeCoupons told her 357,000 followers.
Some fans are promising to follow their favorite TikTok coupon influencers wherever they end up. Others envision taking a break: “Once they start the ban I’ll probably spend less time on social media. It’s just not the same,” one of Rae’s followers wrote. Still others are hoping for the best but bracing for the worst: “I refuse to believe it,” one of Melyssa’s followers commented. “You literally taught and inspired me to start couponing for my household.”
There’s still a chance that TikTok could earn a death-row reprieve. And even if the ban does take effect this weekend, a post-ban ownership change might bring it back to life. By then, though, many TikTok coupon influencers and their followers might have moved on to the next new thing. Apps you may never have heard of are already soaring in popularity – there’s Clapper, and Flip, and RedNote and Lemon8. For those trying to decide which one of those will best assist their couponing efforts, “it will be made pretty apparent which app is going to replace TikTok, and then I would join that one,” Rae advised her followers.
So no matter what happens, couponers who relied on blogs in the 2000s, Facebook in the 2010s and TikTok in the 2020s will gravitate somewhere else soon enough. The platforms of choice may come and go – but the desire to save money using coupons is likely to outlive them all.
