Mobile Coupons and Personalized Deals- Are They Fair?

Lately I’ve been thinking about Safeway/Randall’s Just4U program, where the store personalizes coupons “just for you” based on your buying history and sends them to your smart phone. No need to clip coupons, they just show up on your phone.

Which sounds like a great idea, until you realize that two women could be standing side by side in a Randall’s, buying the same bag of chips- and one will be charged $1 less because she got a special Just 4 U coupon that the other women has NO access to. That picture, above, is from my account. Does my sister get the same deal? Can anyone get chips for $3.81? If not, is that a problem or is that just savvy business?

Also, I wonder if the program disenfranchises those who use paper coupons, and how it leaves out those who need coupons the most- those who can’t afford a smart phone and the elderly on fixed incomes, who statistically are less likely to own the latest generation of technology.

Perhaps it’s the customization aspect of it- it’s one thing to offer mobile coupons, it’s quite another to offer the savings only to certain people at certain times, while other shoppers have no way of ever getting those savings.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Robyn August 12, 2012 3:22 pm edit
Wholesalers do it all the time.

Sarah-MVR August 12, 2012 3:23 pm edit
I won’t say that this might not be fair, but I suspect that this has been going on for a lot longer than we know. Think about those discount cards that stores have used for the last 10+ years. I am sure they had secret discounts for certain people on those cards, we just couldn’t see them. Or they could have caused different catalina coupons to print out for different people. The only difference I see here is that smartphones allow people to compare their coupons with ease.

Annie August 12, 2012 6:54 pm edit
Hello??? People do this all the time when they offer giveaways on their blogs but give people more chances to win by posting it on facebook/twitter/their blogs. I choose not to blog because of time and choose not to use facebook for various reasons. What is the difference?

- Milehimama August 12, 2012 7:32 pm edit
  Oh I don’t think this is the same- these are hidden deals. Woman A could get $2 off and Woman B wouldn’t even know, nor have any chance at all of getting that price. That’s different from allowing many entries into a contest.
  
Rachel H. August 13, 2012 8:25 am edit
I don’t think this is unfair. It is annoying for those of us who prefer not to be leashed to the internet 24/7 via our phones but not unfair. We all deal with the consequences of the choices we make. Woman A might save a buck on a bag of chips but I save more than a buck on my phone bill by not having to have internet. Works for me.

Hanna August 13, 2012 10:32 am edit
$3.81 for a bag of Lay’s? The sale price? KS has them for 3.20 regularly priced. I sure hope you have never paid 4.99, cause that’s just ridiculous.

As regards your concerns about fairness, I think anyone who wants coupons can get them. They have become so easily available (even if they aren’t necessarily very good coupons.) And companies have the right to sell their product to anyone they like at any price they choose. Also, smart phones aren’t the only way to get these kind of deals. King Soopers regularly mails me coupons based on my past purchases (and some of them are actually quite good.)

- Milehimama August 13, 2012 12:02 pm edit
  lol, well that’s why I don’t generally shop Randall’s. They are generally higher priced than anywhere else. I did like their $5 Fridays though.
  
Rachel August 13, 2012 6:40 pm edit
I generally don’t shop at Safeway, because they are the high-end grocer in my town. However, I do have a Just4U account, and when I have used the offers they NEVER show up at check out! This has happened at least half a dozen times in the last year. I put something on my online “list” at home from the Just4U offers, print out the list, go to the store, put the items in my cart, and when I swipe my Safeway card, no discounts appear.

Each time, I have asked about it and showed the clerk my printout. The clerk gets the supervisor, who tells them to enter it manually as a coupon, since the program didn’t work right.

All that said, the program determines what sales are available partially by what store you are at. Multiple times, the supervisor who has solved the “problem of the disappearing discount” has said something to the effect of “I don’t know what’s wrong, I used that discount for that item on my groceries and didn’t have a problem”. So I don’t think their metrics are quite as individualized as Safeway advertises. Just4U also bombards me with discount offers on stuff I never buy or never buy at Safeway (like coffee–we don’t drink coffee in my house).

As for having access to the program, anyone who has access to the library and bothers to have a Safeway card has access to the program.

Rachel August 13, 2012 6:42 pm edit
BTW, I don’t have a smart phone. I only access Just4U through my computer at home. And my Safeway has laptops and printers set up at the store’s entrance so people can access their Safeway account there, at the store.

Sheila August 19, 2012 7:52 am edit
No one has a “right” to a coupon or sale price. Stores give those out to encourage people to buy more. You get a special price “just for you” in the hopes that you will buy a product you don’t usually buy, and then you’ll find you like it and keep buying it even when the sale price goes away. The store is not trying to save you money. They are trying to make you a loyal customer.

Sometimes we are able to “game the system” by buying things only on sale or with coupons and prevent the store from making so much of a profit off of us. But we don’t have a “right” to be able to do that. If a person without a smartphone wants good prices …. they can go to a different store. And they probably do! That’s what capitalism is all about: sellers sell at the price they want, and if the price is too high, no one will buy and they’ll be forced to lower the price. Meanwhile there are many sellers to choose from so you can select the lowest price and highest quality, based on your own priorities.

You can’t say a store is “unfair” with what they do with their own money. That’s like the hired hands in the Bible saying it was “unfair” to give some of them higher wages than others. The vineyard owner had the right to do what he liked with his own money. All he had to do was pay what he had agreed to pay.

Ellen August 21, 2012 2:22 pm edit
The thing is, the stores are not really giving anything away with these coupons and special deals. They use membership programs and “secret deals” in order to keep getting information from you about your buying habits, demographics, etc. They are buying data with coupons. They use the data to make more money off you and everyone else. If they were really giving stuff away they would lose money and go out of business. People who choose not to sell their data are not compensated with the coupons – it’s a fair trade.

Mobile Coupons and Personalized Deals- Are They Fair?

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