Did You Know That in the First-half of 2011 There Have Been Fewer Coupons, Greater Values, More People Saving!

Just came back from using my $10 off $10 Pier 1 coupon that Heather posted about. Thanks, Heather! While there I spotted five people using the same exact coupon. Way to go you savvy shoppers. I went in for white dishes to add to my casual entertaining pieces and spotted two beautiful dishes at 50% off! Score! What a steal. Thanks again, Heather!

Coupons like these are great, but if you think you’re seeing less coupons available this year, you’re right. NCH, a subsidiary for Valassis, the company that distributes the Red Plum insert, put out a mid-year report that found coupon distribution (for consumer packaged goods) is down 6.2% from the same period last year. Yikes!


We still had 5.7% more coupons than the first half of 2009 and 18.4% higher than the first half of 2008. But apparently last year we had more coupons available than we did this year.

■The newspaper is still the #1 source for coupons - NCH also reported you will still find 89.6% of all manufacturer coupons in newspaper inserts and mail delivery (inserts delivered by mail). See chart above.

■Printable and e-coupons - Digital coupons – both paper and paperless formats – are continuing to grow but at a slower pace than they have in previous years.

■Coupon values are up! The average value for coupons offered the first part of this year is $1.57, which is up from 5.4% from the same period last year. this is great news if you live near a store that runs super double promotions.

■Coupons are good for about 10.1 weeks before expiration - The average length of a coupon offer (from when it issues to when it expires) is an average of 10.1 weeks, which is about what it was last year.

■Although there were fewer coupons available in the first half of 2011, consumers are still redeeming them in droves (surprise, surprise!). Total redemption reached 1.75 billion coupons, an increase of 2.9% increase from the same time last year. In total, couponers have saved $2.0 billion with coupons through mid-year 2011, which is up 53% from the same time last year.

If you love these kinds of stats as much as me, you should view the NCH Mid-Year 2011 Coupon Facts Report here (PDF)