Thursday, August 11, 2011

Study: Sunday papers still the primary source for coupons

Even though the newspaper industry is facing challenges, people are still turning to the Sunday editions for coupons, Media Post reported.


According to Scarborough Research, coupon usage for household items, such as groceries, increased 24 percent since 2006. Although 22 percent of these coupon users get coupons on digital media, including email, text messaging and the Internet, Sunday newspaper inserts is still the primary channels, (49 percent), followed by in-store coupons (43 percent), direct mailings (33 percent) and in-store circulars (26 percent).


"If you look at FSI's, they've been the dominant source of coupons for a long time. To chip away at a share of that is [hard] because it's such a large base," said Brian Condon, executive vice president for commercial development for Scarborough, to Marketing Daily.


In addition, the electronic coupon users, whom Scarborough calls "Digital Deal Seekers" (defined as adults who live in households that usually obtain cents-off coupons through email, text messaging or Internet sites or those who went online for coupons in the past month), tend to patronize local businesses than average adults. This can be partially attributed to the "Groupon effect,” Media Post reported.


"What we found was that the people who fit into this category were more active shoppers and supporters of local businesses," Condon added. "Plus, people that are redeeming coupons are people who are active shoppers and have an intention to use coupons."


Image: skeeter_turkey via flickr

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