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Should Seniors Automatically Access Digital Coupons?
Digital-only coupons offered through grocers’ loyalty programs would be automatically applied to senior citizens’ bills across the state of New York under new legislation being proposed in the New York State Assembly.
The bill would apply to residents 65 and older.
A statement from Senator George Borrello, who introduced the legislation, cited a survey from Pew Research conducted in 2021 that showed that 39% of seniors did not own a smartphone versus 17% of those between the ages of 50 and 64. Smartphone ownership is nearly 100% for those under the age of 50.
Borrello added that most discounts are now offered through online-only ads and coupons that require a digital device to redeem.
“Loyalty cards are increasingly being replaced with smartphone apps. For seniors who don’t use smartphones, this means they are unfairly deprived of discounts that could help ease the burden of higher grocery costs,” he said.
The senator said the bill is partly motivated by the rising cost of food, citing a USDA Consumer Price Index report that shows a 25% price increase from 2019 to 2023.
“Inflation is hurting the budgets of people across the spectrum, particularly those on fixed incomes,” Borrello said. “In the past, senior citizens could count on being able to reduce their grocery bills by using coupons from the newspaper or by taking advantage of weekly sales on produce, meat and dairy products. They could also obtain discounts by presenting physical loyalty or rewards program cards.”
Redemption of digital load-to-card (L2C) coupons at U.S. grocers surpassed those of paper free-standing inserts (FSIs) for the first time in 2020, exacerbated by the pandemic, according to Inmar Intelligence.
In April 2023, Kroger said it was phasing out print inserts in newspapers and weekly mailers due to costs associated with printed circulars and declining newspaper circulation. The nation’s largest grocery chain urged customers to download its app or go to kroger.com to access weekly deals. Kroger’s print version of the flier is still available inside stores, and digital deals can be accessed at each store’s customer service desk.
For grocers, digital coupon usage drives personalization efforts.
On Kroger’s fourth-quarter analyst call, CEO Rodney McMullen said, “By increasing customers’ digital experience, we can more effectively deploy our data sciences and our AI to serve the right offers to customers at the right time. In 2023, our customers clipped 4 billion coupons, which is 1 billion more coupons compared to 2022. We know these offers help customers stretch their budget and lead to deeper loyalty.”
Regardless, bills in Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Washington are also pushing for either automatic discounts or at least an easy “in-store alternative” to digital coupons. Some have questioned the ease of accessing digital coupons in stores.
Steve Conway, a senator from Washington state, said earlier this year at a meeting of the Senate Committee on Labor and Commerce, “In the store that I’ve been in, I don’t see any placards or anything there at the checkstand that tells people that they can access these if you’ll just talk to us. That is not there.”
Discussion Questions
Is automatically applying digital coupons offered through loyalty programs to seniors a fair step grocers could take to help overcome the technical hurdles faced by many older shoppers?
Do you agree that digital-only coupons discriminate against the elderly?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
David Spear
VP, Professional Services, Retail, NCR
Georganne Bender
Principal, KIZER & BENDER Speaking
Butt out Borrello! Good intentions, perhaps, or maybe just government overreach masquerading as such.(Next we’ll be mandating everyone own a smartphone….uh-oh, did I just give someone an idea?) While this is an issue – we’ve discussed it often enough here on RW – I want to give stores and consumers more time to resolve the dilemma themselves, before bringing in the heavy hand of regulation…if ever.
This is simply not an area for government. States need to stop legislating for every issue under the sun. Retailers can, and will, resolve this matter without the dead hand of the state directing them.
So Pew surveyed 1,502 U.S. adults from January to February 2021 and found that adults 65+ don’t have a smartphone and don’t use social media? Where did they find these people? The Twilight Zone?
This age group is me, my peers, and many of us on the BrainTrust. I am certain we all have smartphones and are on social media. If this survey was made up of people in my parent’s generation I might buy it, but saying Baby Boomers aren’t connected is crazy.
Go ahead and automatically give everyone, of every age, the loyalty coupon deal. There are plenty of grocers doing that now.
Agreed. I am sure that smart phone ownership drops for the Silent Generation, but Baby Boomers are a pretty connected bunch from all the surveys we do!
It really is growing tiresome, isn’t it?
YES.
TMI! My 80+ year old mother has a smart phone and been on a computer almost as long as I have. People simply aren’t that helpless just because they are of a certain age. Hasn’t anyone heard that age is a state of mind? Ridiculous attempt to gather more data.
I am well into my senior years, and so are my friends. I know NO ONE of those friends who doesn’t have/use social media. The data must be in question.
Why can’t we make this really simple and give everyone the digital coupon, as many retailers already do? I’d rather keep my phone in my pocket and not think about it as part of my shopping trip. In fact, I don’t like coupons at all. Just show me the money.
Agree with my fellow BrainTrusters, this is government overreach at its finest and doesn’t belong on legislation floors. Allow retailers to find creative solutions to these kinds of issues. All the seniors I know who are in the mid to late 80’s are connected with smart phones and doing more with apps than me, including my parents.
If this is a loyalty/reward/retention program what does age have to do with it? What does my type of phone have to do with it? Apparently grocers want to lure me in with a “reward” program so I will shop there, and then not give me the reward unless I take the extra step. C’mon retailer, this is you program and I signed up. I present my card at checkout and you give me my points or discount or whatever. I’m shopping in your store and not down the street. Isn’t that what you wanted? But now I have to clip “electronically”…? All it should take is one grocer getting smart here and the rest would have to follow suit.
Just… automatically and arbitrarily give one age group a discount, just because they’re older? Not whether they can afford it or not or how many mouths they are trying to feed? So it’s a cost increase for single moms and the local kiddie softball team then, because the stores will have to make the revenue up somewhere. No place for loyalty programs, and manufacturers’ trade spend just went down the toilet as nothing is trackable anymore. Or stores just get rid of coupons.
I join my fellow BrainTrusters in that retailers who intend to compensate members of those demographics that may not own a smart device can easily figure out how to make the rewards automatic. If they refuse to, shame on them, by contrast to those holdouts, there are other grocery chains that have a Senior Discount Day one day a week, and you don’t have to be on their loyalty program. Those retailers that want to will, on their own.
As most of the other BrainTrust panelist have stated, I agree that this is not an issue that needs government intervention. Moving to digital only coupons make sense for retailer. That said, I am not a fan of coupons in general. It requires shoppers to jump through hurdles to get a discount. Those that don’t make the effort to apply coupons end up paying higher prices. I don’t like the idea of making people work to get a fair price. Personally, I would like to see retailers discontinue coupons and just offer the same discount on product to all consumers.
First, it seems absurd that such a high percentage of seniors (like me) is smartphone-deprived. I’d like to see more evidence of it, but anybody with eyes and ears has a right to be skeptical.
Second, it’s pretty easy — at least at my local Kroger store — to use loyalty savings even without a smartphone. (It’s called, “Enter your phone number on the keypad.”) Singling out seniors for special treatment — even if they are on fixed incomes — seems unnecessary. Why not single out Millennials who are probably dealing with the high costs of housing, more so than their retired Boomer parents?
The problem is that most retailers calculate a redemption rate for coupons and, assume a percentage are not going to take advantage of it. They use this to help calculate the cost of the promotion.
It’s not gonna happen. PS It is CRAZY Making that 65 is considered old. I’ve been listening to this for 4 years now, and I’m starting to stoop, I feel so darned aged. Knock it off!
Auto-applying coupons makes the coupon effectively a temporary price reduction for loyalty members, that has been around for decades already. Instituting this for a portion of the population, and not all, would be complex and difficult to regulate. Net net, more cost and less value for the general public, the opposite of the bill sponsor’s intent.
What a dumb idea. We Boomers are experienced and capable, not feeble, and I don’t relish the idea of self-reporting my age to the stores I frequent.
First, no more government intervention in commerce.
Second, who determines shoppers over 65 need a discount more than shoppers just starting a family, recent graduates, single moms or any other group?
Third, coupons are a tactic. While frustrating, extra hoops for deeper digital discounts, like adding to your retailer coupon wallet, is part of that tactic to control redemptions and manage program costs. Otherwise they would do an overall price reduction for all or for all card members. But they didn’t get the budget for that. Change the rules and the response will be to eliminate the deeper discount offers.
This is yet another example of good intentions gone wrong. Why would any merchant just go along with giving discounts to anyone of a certain age??? One of the core tenants of a discount is to entice someone to buy something. If you make ever checkout experience a treasure hunt of sorts (unless of course you put signage up all through the store), that defeats the purpose of the discount.
There are other ways to fix this. In store signage, coupon disbursement at store level, go shop somewhere else, etc. etc. The retail industry along with the elderly hardly need another Government intervention to solve something.
First, this isn’t just about customers over the age of 65. This is about any customer who doesn’t have the tools (in this case, a mobile phone) – or doesn’t know how to use them. That said, the retailer should decide how they want to do business, not the government. I like they are concerned for older citizens, but shouldn’t the retailer make its own decision to include them. I can see this as a relationship opportunity when an employee helps someone load an app onto their phone and shows them how to save money.