Illustration by Steve Greenberg
Star staff

What separates consumers who use coupons from those who don't often comes down to whether it is more important to save time or money.

For Mary Palmisano of Ventura, coupon savings are too good to pass.

"I've been called the Queen of Coupons," she said. Once a month, she does her major shopping at a store that gives her double value for her coupons, such as Ralphs off Victoria Avenue in Ventura. She estimates that it often reduces her grocery bill about 50 percent.

But while there are some dedicated coupon snippers like Palmisano, a growing number of consumers shun them.

Coupon use dropped 13 percent from 2005 to 2006, according to CMS, a company that tracks coupon trends.

Ashlee Dodd of Camarillo said the only time she uses coupons is when she orders a pizza — usually grabbing one of the discount offers hanging on her fridge.

Dodd sometimes cuts out coupons, but ends up throwing them away. "Having them around my house is too much clutter," she said. She also admitted that she finds it kind of embarrassing to pull out a stack of coupons while going through the checkout line.

Companies, which use coupons as a marketing tool to steer consumers to their products, are trying to find ways to attract shoppers like Dodd — those who find cutting, sorting and using coupons is too time consuming and not worth the hassle.

Only about 1.26 percent of the 300 billion coupons issued in the United States are actually redeemed, according to ICOM Information & Communications, a company that tracks coupon behavior.

To some extent, companies are adapting to this shopping trend — and perhaps driving some of the change.

Large warehouse clubs such as Costco or Sam's Club offer discounts on bulk items but don't take manufacturers' coupons. Grocery stores encourage people to sign up for loyalty cards that earn them discounts on select items.

Vons tried to do away with double coupons in Southern California, in part to offer more store discounts and because fewer people were using coupons. But the grocery chain later brought back double coupons, cheerfully advertising the fact in large banners at some of its stores.

Some companies are trying to make coupon usage easier. Instead of requiring shoppers to clip store coupons, Target recently sent out cards that consumers can punch out and put in their wallets. At the store, a cashier scans the card to show the coupon discounts available.

The card is good until all the discounts are used or the offers expire.

"Target is always trying to find new ways to make the shopping experience simple and affordable," said Ana Williams, a Target spokeswoman. "We hope they do find it a convenient way to shop."

So far, the response has been positive and the company plans to continue the approach, she said.

Enticing customers to use coupons comes down to time and money, but in this case it has to do with how much time a shopper has to redeem a coupon and how much of a savings is offered, according to officials at ICOM.

Companies often put a quick expiration date on a coupon to drive short-term sales, but what people need is more time to get that coupon redeemed, said Peter Meyers, ICOM vice president of marketing.

"If you're ignoring consumers' need for more time ... you're undermining the overall success of your coupon program," he said.

People's lives have grown busier. Two-thirds of families rely on two incomes and have very different lifestyles than families 50 years ago, Meyers said.

ICOM's statistics show 18 percent of redeemed coupons are used in the first three months.

An additional 41 percent are redeemed between four and six months, and 34 percent are redeemed after six months.

Using one set of statistics, cutting the expiration time by about three months meant losing about half of the customers who would have redeemed the coupon.

The company also finds that as the value of a coupon rises, so will the number of people who redeem it — to a point. There's a certain point, which varies by product, where the usage plateaus and offering any more doesn't yield better returns.

It is important for companies to figure out where that plateau is and find the "sweet spot" where the expiration date and value offered get the most return on investment, ICOM reports.

The company also recommends targeting coupons better to customers.

At the Trader Joe's in Camarillo, one man who wouldn't give his name said he would use more coupons if the ones he found in the paper actually applied to him. Women's perfume and eyeliner isn't his thing.

ICOM, which handles direct marketing campaigns for companies, encourages customers to target their coupons to their audiences, treating groups of customers differently. How those groups are determined is important, too.

Often, it is less age and income than whether someone has a certain kind of washing machine or eats a certain kind of food that will drive their spending habits, Meyers said.

For example, whether a customer uses the brand being advertised or a different brand can determine how much the coupon savings should be (current users often require a smaller savings to use the coupon).

ICOM, which operates in the United States and Canada, uses the comparison of coupon behavior in the two countries as an example.

In Canada, people get fewer coupons each week and only 57 percent of coupons there arrive in newspaper inserts, compared with 82 percent in the United States. That implies more targeted advertising in Canada, where the redemption rate is 4.46 percent, more than three times greater than in the U.S.

"Treating different customers differently yields big payoffs," Meyers said.