Mobile Coupons Survey: Retailers Could Improve with Mobile Apps

Coupons have long been a popular way for shoppers to save money. But the coupon landscape is changing for a lot of American families. According to a recent report from Placed and RetailMeNot, mobile is becoming the most popular way for consumers to find and use coupons. So just how many families currently use coupon apps or online services? We asked 1,000 respondents about their couponing habits and how they like to save money.

Coupon Consumers

In Ask Your Target Market’s latest survey, 12% of respondents said that they always use coupons when making purchases. 22% use coupons most of the time. 26% use them about half the time. 30% said they rarely ever use coupons when making purchases. And 11% never do.86% of coupon consumers said that they normally use coupons on grocery items. 37% use them on restaurant purchases. 26% use coupons on clothing purchases. 23% use them on home items. 19% use them on entertainment. 16% use them on technology purchases. And 5% use them on other types of purchases, like beauty and craft supplies.

Coupon Preferences

At this point, 79% of coupon consumers said that they normally still use regular paper coupons. 47% said they use online coupon codes. 38% print out online coupons from websites to use in stores. 25% said they regularly use coupons from mobile apps. And just 2% use other types like coupons loaded onto a store card from a website.More specifically, 73% of coupon users said they prefer when stores offer a dollar amount off their total purchase with a coupon. 54% like getting a percentage off their entire purchase. 49% like when stores offer a percentage off of one item. 41% prefer getting buy one, get one discounted offers. And 33% like coupons that give them free gifts with purchases. Walmart, Target, Kroger, Kohl’s, CVS, Walgreens and Publix were named as some of consumers’ favorite stores to use coupons.

Mobile Coupons

17% of overall respondents said that they regularly use mobile coupon apps or websites to find deals. 16% have used them multiple times in the past. 20% have done so at least once. And 47% said they’ve never used mobile apps or websites to find coupons. Ibotta, RetailMeNot, Groupon and eBates were some of the most popular coupon services mentioned by respondents who have used them.And overall, 52% of respondents said that they are at least somewhat likely to use coupons that they receive from brands. Just 14% said they are unlikely to use them. And 34% were neutral.

Key Takeaways

Coupons can certainly be an effective way for brands to entice customers to shop. But many consumers still stick with regular paper coupons when shopping at traditional retail stores like Walmart and Target. Retail stores can certainly make use of larger coupon sites or apps to entice those mobile-savvy customers. But there’s also room for improvement when it comes to their own mobile apps. Not many consumers named store apps when considering their favorite places to find coupons online or on mobile, even though many large retailers do have their own mobile apps. So those retailers could potentially benefit from really promoting those apps and letting customers know about the coupons and deals they can get from using them.You can view the complete survey results in the widget below and be sure to click “Open Full Report” to take advantage of all the chart and filter options.Photo Credit: Coupons by jridgewayphotography under CC BY-ND 2.0What do you want to know? If you need some consumer insights on a particular topic, let us know in the comments below and we’ll consider it for an upcoming survey post.

Results were collected via AYTM’s online survey panel.