Not subscribing to at-home delivery of either major local newspaper (Washington Post and Baltimore Sun), I get my Sunday paper, well, on Sunday.
But sometimes, I would like to know what is on going on sale at some of the Big Box stores ahead of time. Those who get home delivery will get their sunday circulars on Friday or Saturday have time to look over them to catch deals, especially the occasional one-or-two day specials to kick off a week. Without subscribing to a paper (I don’t necessarily trust that any newspaper thrown onto my front steps by the delivery person would still be there by the time I can go out and get it), I’d still like to know what the coming week’s sale papers hold.
Is there a website that updates this information each week, much like some sites get Black Friday sales leaks in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving? I assume that each week, the following week’s circulars would be available by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest. Having worked in retail, I can certainly say the store management offices tend to have them by around that time.
A quick google did not lead me to any such sites, but by the nature of the internet having (more or less, for good or bad) everything, and there being a vocal group of bargain conscious shoppers that visit online coupon sites and bargain sale sites and such (I’m partial to Techbargains myself), I’d assume there has to be the weekly ad equivalents of Black Friday sites.
I understand that, unlike Black Friday, there may be enough regional variance in store ads being published for national chains to make a weekly tally unrealistic or unreliable. But I always thought the “enter your zip code” screens for the company “View Ad Online” pages are more for marketing data than to load a different version of Big Box’s ad for an Arizona consumer as for a New Yorker.
I’d found that one. But when I click on a store, it goes to that store’s website, and in turn, goes to the current week’s ad. So I still don’t get to see what’s going to start on Sunday until Sunday. I want to see the next week’s on the Friday or Saturday before.
Don’t know how they run things in the big city, but here in Cleveland, even with home delivery all week, you only get the Sunday ads in Sunday’s paper…never ahead of time. The only person who gets them ahead (well, it used to be like this when my brother had a paper route) is the paper delivery person who gets the funnies and the supplements ahead of time so that they are ready to stuff into Sunday’s paper.
You just have to get up really early and grab your paper from the curb when it gets dropped off like my mom does (she can’t lie in bed, knowing the paper is at the end of the drive…she wakes when she hears the delivery car and the thud, and will sometimes go out to the street at 5 am to get the paper). Then you’ll have a few hours before the stores open to plot your strategy.
People who get home delivery here (and where I last lived in MA) get the grocery store circulars on Saturday, and everything else on Sunday, same as people who buy the paper Sunday morning.
I used to work at the headquarters of a major supermarket chain and part of my job was indirectly developing those weekly store inserts. As you may or may not imagine, they are a pretty big trade secret especially at certain times of the year. Strategy and development starts months in advance. It involves lots of people and lots of stages. There may be last minute changes. The inserts aren’t generated by the printer until shorty before the paper is run (maybe a few days or less).
What you are asking to do is subvert their whole process and they don’t want that. I know it doesn’t actually matter if you get the information but, if you can, competitors can adjust their strategy based on them. There is a lot of corporate espionage in retail and the companies try to make it hard on outsiders to know.
Of course, the inserts do exist on Saturday in some form. I walked into a convenience store once on a Saturday afternoon and there was a big stack of paper’s with the next day’s date on each one. They were papers that weren’t finished being compiled or some freaky-ass other thing the clerk told me.
Fair enough. And every November, the Black Friday sites get lawsuit threats from the retailers when they obtain leaked ads. I suppose it only works in that limited case because the sites can anger the retailers for a few weeks, then have eleven months to cool off. It may not be realistic to have a leak website for every week.
I grew up with my parents having Baltimore Sun home delivery. Monday through Friday was the standard weekday paper. Saturday was the Saturday Paper and the non-news part of Sunday’s. So you got all the circulars, the Arts section, Books, the lazy Sunday reads that wouldn’t be affected by one more day. The Sunday delivery was the Sunday news. So I’ve grown up with an expectation of early reveal by a day (and occasionally two, when the Sunday Inserts would inexplicably be dropped off on Friday instead of Saturday). I didn’t even consider this might not be standard practice.
I lived for a couple years in an area where if one wanted to, one could go to the grocery store on Saturday and buy the Early Bird edition of the Sunday paper on Saturday (for like 75 cents.) This contained the comics, the ads, etc.
Or if you really like coupons, you could go on Sunday and get a pack which combined the regular Sunday paper ($2.00 or so) with the Early Bird edition, for $2.50. this gave you twice the ads.
I found it fascinating, and weird, and usually subscribed to the paper–because they called and offered me a deal where I could get the whole week’s paper delivered to me for less than the cost of one Sunday paper plus one additional paper sometime during the week.
On Sunday, you can buy a copy of the Sunday Post for $1.50.
Or, you can get the “Double Pack,” which is two identical copies of the Sunday Post, each with its own coupons and ads packet, for $2.00.
We spend the extra $0.50 each week, and in so doing, have double the coupons around for shopping. We save far more than that $0.50 by getting the double pack.
And, added bonus, we can both read the paper at the same time, and not worry about swapping out sections to one another.