I Heart Digital Coupons

The more I think about clipable and printable coupons, the more I envision the model of my computer-phobic attorney friend, who finally caved in and got an email address for his business, only to have his secretary print out all of his emails as they came in, so he could read them on paper.

Paper coupons are inefficient.  Forget about the fact that they are a complete waste of paper and are utterly ungreen.  The fact that you need to put them in your purse, bring them to the store, have the store swipe them, etc. strikes me as very un-digital-age.  Think about cashing a paper check vs. using an ATM card.

A current advantage to digital coupons is that they can be stacked with paper coupons of any sort, manufacturer's or store, probably due to most cashier's complete cluelessness to the fact that they exist.  This gives couponers a TRIPLE chance to save.  I recently tripled up on a few items at King Soopers (a store that also doubles coupons automatically), and at the end of the transaction, in spite of the fact that I bought some uncouponed items, the store still owed me fifty cents. (Naturally they weren't about to hand over any money, so I just had them add a cheap item to checkout.)

There are currently five websites that I know of that allow you to load digital coupon on to your loyalty shoppers cards:

• Cellfire.com
• Shortcuts.com
• P &G Esaver.com
• Kroger.com (or to be more specific, the Kroger chain store in your area, whatever it is called.  In Denver, where I live, it is King Sooper)
• Safeway.com

These are only the ones I know of; please comment below if you know of others.  I think these sites are way ahead of the game and that this is the wave of the couponing future.  Here are the two flaws that I see in this model:

1. Tying coupons to loyalty cards limits you to those stores only.  I'm sure that Kroger and Safeway see these as features and not bugs, but sites like Shortcuts and Cellfire must understand that what I'd really like to do is bring in a card loaded with digital coupons to Walmart or Walgreens, or any store of my choosing.  Attention Future Marketing Genius Out There Who Wants to Make a Lot of Money:  develop some sort of universal coupon card, where a card loaded with digital manufacturer's coupons can be swiped at the checkout of any store.  You will be rich.
2. I don't know what coupons I have on my card or when they will expire.  Each of the sites above lets you print out a list of the coupons you have loaded, but that's totally inefficient.  I want one master list of the coupons I have, and I want it on a small register tape at the store, or better yet, I want it displayed on my smartphone.  If I don't know which coupons I have, and the entire list is not readily available when I'm poised to shop, I won't know what to buy.

In spite of these two flies in the ointment, I still love digital coupons. I know Target is dabbling in coupons that you load up on your cellphone, though they need to train their cashiers when they add these sorts of innovations, as the last time I handed my Iphone to a Target cashier and asked her to swipe the coupon code on it, she looked at me as though I had just landed from Planet Geekcheap.

We'll see just how digital couponing shakes out in the future.  

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