Printed Coupon Distribution Drops in H1 As Digital Coupons Rise

August 22, 2019

This article is included in these additional categories:

Cross-Media & Traditional | Free-Standing Inserts & Circulars | Promotions, Coupons & Co-op

The number of print coupons distributed in the first half of 2019 has fallen 12.4% from the same period in 2018. Recent data from Kantar shows that more than 118.4 billion print coupons were dropped in H1 2019, but that’s down from the 135.2 billion printed coupons issued in H1 2018.

At the same time as printed coupons are seeing a decline, digital coupon distribution continues to grow, albeit at nowhere near a replacement rate in terms of volume. Kantar estimates that digital coupons either printed or clipped (downloaded) rose by 8.5% year-on-year (y-o-y) to reach 4.7 billion in H1 2019. This can be attributed, at least partly, to the growing preference of consumers going paperless and either clipping coupons directly onto a loyalty card or adding them to a mobile device.

According to Kantar, the growth in digital promotions was largely driven by an increase of 309 million estimated prints/clips in the Dry Grocery category. Dry Grocery also accounted for the largest portion of new product promotions in the first half of 2019. Additionally, of the 470 Dry Grocery new products captured by Kantar, more than 400 were first promoted through digital coupons.

Although not suggested by Kantar, one reason why print coupons may be falling at such a rate could be due to the reduction in newspaper and magazine circulations.

While the weighted average face value of printed and digital coupons are increasing slightly, the time that consumers are given to use them is decreasing, much like it did last year. The weighted average face value of printed food promotions increased by $0.18 while digital food coupons increased in value by $0.08.

At the same time, digital offers’ expiration period decreased by 5% y-o-y giving consumers an average of 3.7 weeks to redeem digital promotions. In Q1 2019 consumers were given an average of 5.1 weeks to take advantage of printed coupon offers, a 5.5% decrease y-o-y. The one exception was with printed food promotions. While printed non-food expiration length dropped 8.7%, the length of the expiration for printed food promotions actually grew by 2.6% to reach an average of 7.8 weeks.

Further data can be viewed online here.

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