A new research study shows that consumers are focused on getting their grocery dollars to go further and the practice is not relegated to those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder.
According to MarketTools, Inc., 63 percent of consumers have made changes to make their dollars go farther. To accomplish this, 80 percent purchase items with coupons; 62 percent buy private label; 58 percent only buy certain items when they are on sale and 43 percent buy larger sizes.
Of those who use coupons, 67 percent use them for at least half of their shopping trips.
Coupon usage is particularly high among households with annual incomes of $75,000 or more. Among these households that use coupons, 49 percent say they bring them with them on every, or nearly every shopping trip for groceries. As a point of contrast, only 38 percent of households earning $25,000 or less use coupons on almost every trip to the grocery store.
Paper coupons remain the most popular, with 72 percent clipping them the old-fashioned way. Consumers also get coupons from a number of online sources, including email (37 percent), coupon sites (36 percent), manufacturer sites (22 percent), and Facebook (10 percent).
Only 36 percent of consumers subscribe to daily deal sites such as Groupon or LivingSocial. Groceries only make up about 13 percent of the offers redeemed by daily deal subscribers.