Coupon clipping is big business

It’s a small operation run out of the basement of Linda Roger’s North Providence house that produces big savings for the tens-of-thousands of customers who pay to get coupons sent to them that they order online.

The Couponmaster.com is an online coupon clipping service.  “We provide our customers with manufacturers coupons for a handling fee.  So the coupons are then sent to them via the U.S. Postal Service,” says Roger.

The company has no special deal with the manufacturers. In fact, Roger and her family buy thousands of Sunday newspapers locally in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island and others bought and sent here from New York, Pennsylvania, and as far away as Missouri.

The advertising inserts are pulled, clipped, categorized, filed, and then processed when the orders come in.

“If you buy the Sunday paper you get one insert or one of each insert.  If you get multiples there’s a really good sale on one item, you only have one coupon for it.  So with us you can order as many coupons as you’d like,“ she says.

Which comes in real handy if the coupon is for just a few cents total, or a free item altogether.

Roger’s company here has 46,000 registered customers, and 29,000 active customers, those who’ve placed orders within the past month-and-a-half.

Repeat customers tend to order you know maybe three to seven different coupons anywhere from 10 to 20 each. Coupons for laundry detergent, cereals, vegetables, and meats, we pretty much run the gamut, says Rogers.

The average minimum $3 order will get you $40 worth of coupons - a savings of almost 60 percent off your regular bill.

But they’re not the only ones in the coupon business.  There are websites like Dealtaker.com, owned by Media General, the same company that owns Channel 10 that offers thousands of coupons, and finds the best deals as it scans 15 million products for sale at the best price.  And it’s interactive.

“Our ‘find the deal’ forums, if you know you want to buy a certain item, you can go and post it, and say ‘I want to buy this’ - somebody will go and post it at some store, it’ll be a surprise, and then the next person will try to beat the price and stuff, and our team of moderators and users and everyone, it’s kind of like a game to see who can find a better deal,“  says Neal Rapaport from dealtaker.com

To find the best deals when you go out to eat, there’s restaurant.com.  Hundreds of other sites are out there too.  Like  couponmountain.com, and retailmenot.com that have user submitted coupon codes that offer free shipping or a percentage off your offer. 

So with a little work on your part, whether you’re shopping for food, or the appliances to cook it on, or deal anywhere, with the first step made by you, others can help you save 60 to 70 percent.  In tough economic times, that makes lots of cents.