Ralph's and Von's Grocery Stores: Consumers Respond to Coupon Cutbacks

81% of the consumers surveyed said they are using grocery store coupons, and 72% said they are using more coupons than they did six months ago, according to survey results released last week by customer acquisition company, Proactiv. This is hardly a statistical shocker. When the economy gets tough, consumers get couponing.

The survey results do emphasize how bold it was for southern California grocery chain Ralph’s to dramatically curtail its coupon doubling program this summer. Ralph’s announced in June that it would no longer double the face value of coupons worth over 50 cents. If you believe everything you read on grass roots websites and blogs, response to this policy change was more intense than the 5.4 earthquake that rumbled through southern California a few weeks later.

Despite letter-writing campaigns and general online harassment, Ralph’s has remained steadfast with their new policy. So, shoppers took their treasured paper discounts and their righteous indignation to rival chain Von’s in seemingly significant numbers. The glow of revenge didn’t last long, though. Very few weeks later Von’s betrayed their coupon doublers too when they announced they would scale back their own coupon program to match Ralph’s.

What’s a coupon addict to do?

Lose sleep at night apparently, if you believe what you read on grassroots websites and blogs. I’ve never been a “professional” couponer and the main reason is because I don’t buy 95% of the stuff that manufacturers issue coupons for. Since I don’t fill my shopping cart with General Mills cereals, Frito Lay snacks, and Proctor and Gamble cleaning product, I am admittedly unsympathetic to the grave distress that the southern California retail grocery pricing trend is apparently causing.

Tonight my neighborhood Ralph’s was plastered with bright yellow price tags pasted underneath the regular price tags. At least 80% of the products on the shelves had the yellow tags, which I discovered was the new “lower everyday price.” I was unimpressed by the pricing gimmick until I noticed the $1.00 difference between the white and yellow prices for my frozen soup vegetables. That got my attention, and I started noticing that the prices for the items on my grocery list were now 25-30% lower, and some prices were half of what they used to be.

Thinking I might have fallen prey to the markup-to-markdown scheme, I went online and calculated what my grocery bill would have been at nearby competitors. Surprisingly, my Ralph’s tab was 30-50% lower than it would have been at Albertson’s and exactly the same as it would have been at fellow coupon turncoat, Von’s. My conclusion is that I have been subsidizing other shoppers’ couponing addiction for a long time with the prices I’ve been paying for my unincentivized grocery store purchases.

For now I will be part of the silent minority who applaud the death of doubling, and hope that the trend catches on for the eventual good of the majority. Perhaps pricing gimmicks are on their way out and operational efficiencies that make price reductions possible are on the way in. A retail consumer can dream.