How do double coupons work?

Factual Questions
1

I mean, I know how they work: You use your coupon for, say, 50 cents off, and the store doubles it so that you actually get a whole buck off.

From reading the fine print, it looks like the supplier pays the store the original 50 cents that they would otherwise lose on the sale. But what about the second, doubled 50 cents? I always assumed the store just took a small hit, but today I noticed coupons that say specifically DO NOT DOUBLE. If the company isn’t the one taking the hit, why do they care?

Now I’m all confused and confabbled.

Last week, the local stores had triple coupons up to 70 cents. I got a LOT stuff FREE or for a few cents each. So who lost money on me? (Heh. When I use coupons I don’t succumb to temptation by buying other stuff…I’m one of those women who goes through with a cart full of stuff and pays seven bucks or so.* It doesn’t happen often, but oh! what fun when it does!)

*But I always shop at about 6 a.m., so no one has to wait in line behind me. :smiley:

~karol

2

With coupons, the manufacturer pays the face amount plus a handling fee.

With double or triple coupons, the stores lose money on the sale. They got the reimbursement mentioned on the coupon, but that’s never enough to cover doubling.

So why do it? As a loss leader. They hope that you’ll buy enough on your trip to the store to make up for the amount they’re losing on the coupon (most stores have loss leader items even if they don’t double or triple coupons).

3

My WAG is that the coupons that say do not double are trying to maintain a consistent background for their product across all stores so that they can more easily see exactly what the change is in buying patterns when they issue coupons. Having double and triple couponing would skew the results in some areas.

4

Ahhh, that makes sense.

Thanks to you both. :slight_smile: Happy couponing.
k

5

I have to wonder if it’s a “service” that the coupon maker provides for the retailer. “Look - you can advertise double coupons, but you won’t have to double ours”. The retailer can then say “Gee, Mr. Customer, we’d like to be able to double this coupon, but, look, it says right on it that we can’t.” In other words, it’s a kind of scam to keep the retailer’s costs down - to allow them to advertise double coupons without having to actually make good on the deal (in certain cases).As was previously pointed out, the retailer only gets the face value of the coupon plus a handling fee. How much the retailer gives you for said coupon is really his concern, and the coupon make has no reason to care how much that is. Thery’re just doing the retailer a favor by printing “no doubling” on the coupon. Retailers may respond to this by being more likely to stock the products involved.

Just my paranoid 2 cents worth.

6

I’m bumping this up because the “do not double” question was never really answered definitively. I seem to be running across more and more Do Not Double coupons.

Also, I wonder if the bar code in some way communicates the Do Not Double message. I know when I use regular coupons in the store, the checker barely even looks at them. He just scans away. The computer will beep if the coupon is for something not purchased, so the checker has absolutely no incentive to even look at the coupon. So, assuming the checker doesn’t look at the coupon, will the Do Not Double coupons get doubled anyway?