Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Emailing the grocery store

I made a big decision a few weeks ago.....(drum roll please).... I decided to switch grocery stores! This was a big deal for me because the store I now choose to go to was not one of my favorites the first time I went to the store.

My reason for switching is I firmly believe this grocery store is lower in prices and has more items on sale. One of the other reasons is this is the only grocery store in the area that offers double coupons. I can learn to like the layout of the store.

Prior to my decision to make the big switch, I got a coupon in the mail for $8 off a $50 purchase. At the time, this did not excite me to much. Now I would do something crazy to get this coupon! This is a great coupon! And I didn't use it when it was valid and now there are no more in circulation! I know this because I emailed the grocery store and asked.

Yes you read it right, I emailed the grocery store and asked!

I wanted to know if the company regularly sends out the $8 off a $50 purchase coupon. I got a response from Bret, the Consumer Response Specialist, who told me "The **store name** coupon that you mentioned was what we call a targeted mailer. It is mailed to a specific number of households near a particular store or stores that we are targeting. There are no coupons of this type in circulation currently." (Dang)

My other question to the grocery store was if they matched a $10 off $50 purchase that is available at the competition - and former store where I used to shop. Bret told me "Thank you for your message. We are very sorry for any misunderstanding with regard to the "match" of **competitors** offer.

When this competitor discontinued their paper coupon program and began to advertise automatic deductions (in mid-January of this year), we made a decision at that time to stick with our own program, which included the lowering of more than 10,000 prices... for ALL customers, EVERY day. At that time, we removed all signing in our stores that communicated any matching of competitors' offers. We do not accept this promotion at any of our stores.

We understand the short-term attraction to an offer of this type but for now we plan to remain committed to our overall price-lowering efforts. We will, however, certainly let our marketing and merchandising teams know of your thoughts and opinions."

Ok Bret, I can get that. I do believe their prices are lower. And when you combine the double coupons (up to 40 cents) with items that are on sale, you can get a pretty good deal...

On my last trip I walked out saving $23 in coupons! The cashier did not like this, she seemed annoyed actually. She scrutinized each coupon and then went through the bags to make sure I had bought the item!!!

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