I was invited to a nearby Kroger store today to hear about the new initiatives this huge grocery store brand will be rolling out soon. I received a gift card, some groceries and a ton of information on Kroger. I admit that I don’t usually shop at Kroger. I think it is more force of habit than anything else. I just go to the store I started shopping at when I first moved to Atlanta. But Kroger has me rethinking that strategy.
The news that created a buzz on social media among frugalistas is that Kroger will eliminate double coupons starting September 21, 2013. Currently, they double all coupons up to .50. Shoppers will still get to use the face value of coupons as well as Kroger’s digital coupons (check out their cool app) but they will no longer double them. According to their research only about 500 households in this region really use double coupons (redeem more than 100 per month). In fact only 8% of their customers use coupons at all. Wow!Instead of doubling coupons, they will be lowering prices on over 3,000 products throughout the store. They want to give all families a low price instead of just the ones with the foresight to clip coupons. They are also trying to help people understand the value of their Fuel Rewards promotion. I didn’t know that every 100 points (equal to $100 spent generally speaking) gets me .10 off every gallon of gas. For those who can rack up the points, you can get up to $1 off each gallon of gas each month (up to 35 gallons). The lower prices and Fuel Rewards may help to make up any loss extreme couponers might face. They have also taken into account the shopper’s experience and reduced wait lines down to an average of 31 seconds. That’s pretty darn fast!
I am one of those couponers who loves double coupons but I am impressed with the value at
Kroger as well as their product inventory. I think I will give them a try and see how my totals add up and how much I actually save when a coupon is doubled. Maybe it’s not that much. We’ll see.
Do you use coupons? Does the cancellation of the doubling policy in Atlanta (and other states) bother you?
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