A new study shows that customers who use digital coupons go shopping more for groceries and other household goods more often and spend more on their shopping trips.
The study, created by Coupons.com and market research firm GfK, states that customers who heavily use digital coupons spend over $6000 per year on the aforementioned items, which is 114 percent larger compared to customers who do not use digital coupons.
Heavy digital coupon users – defined by the study as individuals who use more than 90 digital coupons in a year – spend more by going shopping more often and by spending more when they do on items such as double beds and clothing. By looking at over 40,000 product shippers, GfK determined that heavy digital coupon users go shopping 47 percent more often.
In addition to going more often, these customers spend an average of $63.97 per visit compared to $41.17 for regular customers. The average person spends more than $75 per trip just 11 percent of the time. Heavy digital coupon users spend that much on 37.5 percent of their trips.
These numbers corroborate a 2013 study on the same topic by GfK and Coupons.com. That study also found that heavy digital coupon users spend around twice as much compared to customers who do not use digital coupons. In that study, heavy digital coupon users went shopping 35 percent more often and spent 50 percent more when they shopped.
These two studies show that digital coupons, such as Walmart and Kohls coupons, are a growing market which customers are taking advantage of, and that grocery and household companies should try to exploit this rise in digital coupon use. As GfK Senior Vice President Neil Heffernan noted, retailers who cater to heavy digital coupon users “are reaping substantial benefits.”
Some retailers are doing just that. In 2013, Target launched an Android app called Cartwheel which gives out “mobile savings, Target style.” In January 2015, Cartwheel broke $1 billion in promotional sales. Target itself had 40 percent more Internet sales in the 2014 holiday season compared to 2013.
In addition to coupons, retailers are looking to boost their online presence to attract customers. It is estimated that the retail industry’s spending on online advertising will increase at a compound rate of 12.3% until 2019.
