Taking a Closer Look at Coupons and Their Life Cycle

Here is a link to a post by Colin over at Hip2Save about the life of a coupon and also about what the numbers and codes on a coupon mean: http://hip2save.com/2010/03/be-a-confident-shopper-by-understanding-coupons.html

Go on and take a look. I'll just summarize Colin's post a bit (the part about the life of a coupon) here:

Manufacturers design the coupon they want to put out, and decide where to put it (into the Sunday coupon inserts, in mazines, in the mail directly to customers, online for customers to print out, etc.).

A person then uses the coupons at a store, and the cashier puts the coupons in some special place so the coupons can be taken care of later. Probably at the end of the day the stores will add up the coupons as if they were cash and compare that total with the sum of the cash in the cash drawer to make sure there isn't a deficit.

Once a week stores send the manufacturer coupons to the store's corporate headquarters where someone processes the coupons. Then from there the coupons are sent to a third-party clearning house. They are  sorted through by hand or on a conveyer belt by machine. The coupons are then sent with an invoice to the manufacturer.

The manufacturer then reimburses the stores for the amount of the coupon plus (usually) an 8 cents (amount varys) for handling each properly redeemed coupon. Next the manufacturer either sends the amount on the invoice to the clearing house (then the clearing house would send a check to the store) or the manufacturer sends a check directly to the store and the store then sends a check back to the clearing house to pay them for sorting through the coupons.

What a process!! So, if you thought that you were costing the stores money by using coupons, then don't worry about it, cause they get reimbursed! Also, if the stores keep the overage, then they are making money with coupon usage. The handling fee does actually go toward shipping and other expenses for handling the coupons, I believe, so stores aren't 'making money' with the handling fee.