Archived question re coupon policy
- Thread starter eleuthreophile
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I've had three extreme couponers during my three weeks at Target. One told me she was offered a chance to be on the show, but turned them down. My favorite was a lady who ended up getting 50 NYC nail polishes for free and said she was donating them to a battered woman's shelter.
Target gets paid the full amount on the coupon plus a small handling fee. Read the fine print on the coupon and it will spell it out. So by giving the overage toward the rest of the purchase, Target is not taking a loss. They will get their money back, no worries.
Coupons are becoming fashionable so having a policy that is coupon friendly will attract more business. If we get all coupon nazi with our guests, they will simply go to Walmart rather than put up with the hassle.
mrknownothing
purveyor of things
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So my store (and presumably others) may have been hit big time by this yesterday. There was a coupon you could get through Facebook for a free $10 gift card with a purchase of $50 or more. The coupons were expiring yesterday, so we were getting a ton of them. The very smart seasonal cashier next to me noticed that something about those coupons didn't seem right after she had a guest do 12 different transactions with them, so I looked and it said limit one coupon per guest. Then I noticed (after doing at least 20 transactions involving the coupons) that it said that they could not be used to cover a purchase of gift cards (you had to have at least $50 worth of actual merchandise) and that the $50 could not be paid with promotional (free) gift cards. Despite these restrictions, the register still accepted the coupons. With the amount of cashiers that don't read coupons closely, guests have probably received thousands of dollars worth of fraudulent gift cards from each store. I told the GSA about this after I realized what the coupons said, and she was shocked. She later joked that we were all going to lose our jobs. The next time I got a guest with the coupon (with a gift card and no merchandise, go figure), I made sure to point out that it couldn't be used to cover a gift card, and he just walked away. As I was leaving, I saw the GSA talking to the STL and ETL-GE (presumably about the coupons), so I have this feeling we're all going to be "talked to" in the near future about reading the fine print on coupons.
That's really interesting, especially the one per customer clause. I had a guest the other day who almost tried to physically assault the guest behind her because the guest in question split her order into two transactions to use two of those coupons and both orders did not equal $50 so she took time adding other merchandise and the guest behind her was getting annoyed because she had to pick up her son so I guess she sighed or something and the lady started yelling at her about how rude she was being and it turned into a situation that I was trying to diffuse and finally the guest just paid for one of her orders without the coupon and told me she was going to report me. :girl_sigh:
mrknownothing
purveyor of things
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Is it so much to ask for guests to just do things the right way?!?
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As a GSA I can tell you that BP is to NEVER adjust any manufacturer coupons under any circumstances. Target is reimbursed for the full value whether the product is more than the coupon value or not. Adjusting the manf. coupon down and not giving overage is coupon fraud and can result in coaching or in some cases termination.
I would just like to say I wish we could get a definitive coupon policy. One day you do this, the next day you're gonna get written up if you do it. Set the damn policy and make it stable and don't change it every week or don't take coupons. That simple.
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This! At our store right now it's even worse right now because we haven't had a GSTL in almost a year so we just have four GSAs. Without one definitive person to have keeping everyone one the same page and a few power hungry GSAs who sabotage the other ones it's become a mess. I just follow best practice when it comes to everything up front and try to keep everyone else doing the same because at day's end that's what we are paid to do.
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I was instructed to adjust down. Everytime I've called the GSTL (we have more than one) to address a coupon issue, they adjusted down.
EDITED to say: I found this on Target's website...
Target stores coupon policy
manufacturer & Target coupons:
• Target accepts one Manufacturer Coupon and one Target Coupon for the same item (unless prohibited by either coupon).
• Item purchased must match the coupon description (brand, size, quantity, color, flavor, etc.).
• Coupon amount may be reduced if it exceeds the value of the item after other discounts or coupons are applied.
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Hmm.. but at the same time, the fine print on the coupons said something like, discount cannot exceed price of item.
What is our coupon policy? I thought it was 1 manufacturer plus 1 target per item, and only four copies of those (equaling 8) can be used on 4 of the exact same items.
What is our coupon policy? I thought it was 1 manufacturer plus 1 target per item, and only four copies of those (equaling 8) can be used on 4 of the exact same items.
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See below.
This is correct. Target coupons will auto adjust themselves and manufacture coupons will prompt that there is no coupon in the transaction, n which case you would accept the coupon and key in the amount of the item. Just ensure that the coupon, both target and manufacture are for the correct item. Our policy states that we accept only 5 like coupons per guest per transaction per day. I believe this is because we have a lot of coupon fraud where a guest will purchase lets say crest whitening strips; coupon of $5 off, Olay beauty item; $5 off, Tide detergent; various $ off, etc..and they will return the item and receive the full amount back including the amount of the coupon. Recently we have had a lot of guests buy the Norcello razors that have like $30 off, $50 off, $10 off etc. One is a Norcello razor for $149.99, the coupon if I am not mistaken is for $30 off, which the guest will be paying only $119.99 for, when they return the item, they will be getting the full $149.99 BACK. Most of the items they are returning we have to defect out and it errks me every time because it's so time consuming. Funny thing is, only manufacture coupons do this, target coupons auto adjust when you return any item that had a coupon used with it. I think that they need to do the same for manufacture coupons. Although we do get reimbursed for them, only manufacture, we are still loosing a lot of money due to having to return the item and using the LP's. Is this coupon fraud an issue in any of your stores also? If so, what have your guys done to try and prevent this, if anything?
redeye58
Hasta Ba Rista, Baby!
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It's been mentioned in earlier threads.
Because Target coupons can link up with the item (unless you have to enter it manually for some reason), it will state what the refund amt will be like it does with giftcard promos.
Because of the nebulous nature of manf coupons (& the fact that we're being reimbursed by a 3rd party vendor), we can't retain the coupon amt because it would be a form of double jeopardy - getting reimbursed by manf & keeping it even if the guest returns the item. The best you can do is to alert AP if you notice flagrant abuse from the same person repeatedly.
Because Target coupons can link up with the item (unless you have to enter it manually for some reason), it will state what the refund amt will be like it does with giftcard promos.
Because of the nebulous nature of manf coupons (& the fact that we're being reimbursed by a 3rd party vendor), we can't retain the coupon amt because it would be a form of double jeopardy - getting reimbursed by manf & keeping it even if the guest returns the item. The best you can do is to alert AP if you notice flagrant abuse from the same person repeatedly.
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I can always tell when there's been a high-value manufacturer's coupon circulating (example Crest White strips), because I will suddenly get a bunch of people returning multiples of them that "lost their receipt, look it up on my card". Like I don't know what you are up to, give me a break! I asked our GSTL if we could do anything about this, because it DOES waste our time running them back to the floor or defecting them out. GSTL said there's not much we can do the way things stand right now. Looks like the manufacturers would get wise to this and find a way to stop this.
Exactly. it sucks I know. I believe that two of our 'regulars' are working together though and are committing credit card fraud because they both have two different cards with the same name. They also came to return the same items, for the same amount. I partnered with my ETL-AP and printed out the transactions on InsidePOS. Not sure where it went from there.
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happened to me today there is cupons for bogo on panteene shampoos the coupons are for up to 6 and some change and the shampoos ring i think 2 something to 3 something. then they have coupons for razors buy any venus or gillete razor and get one free up to 11 and some change well when you scan the coupon it takes 11 off the razors and most of the razors are only 6 bucks my gstl had me adjust the price of the coupon to 6 for the razor. the guest came back and returned them and wanted the coupon back which we said we cant.
had another lady with razors today and same thing i told her the coupon wont scan ohh then i dont want them sorry they are fruaders i wish the manufactures would change it so they would get back what they paid not what the coupon was
had another lady with razors today and same thing i told her the coupon wont scan ohh then i dont want them sorry they are fruaders i wish the manufactures would change it so they would get back what they paid not what the coupon was
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My GSTL has me do the same thing, however most of our cashiers don't actually check the coupons very well. I'd love to know how much money these guests are "saving" when they don't deserve it.
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My GSA (now a TL for another department) threw a fit when she saw me adjusting down coupons. So go figure.
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Well your GSA was wrong; it's in our coupon policy that we will adjust manufacturers' coupons to not exceed the price of the item. Unless they've changed the policy yet again.
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No it hasn't changed....her theory was that she would rather have the guest get more off and have the coupon attached to the product than adjust it down. I once pointed out that some of them weren't attaching anyway because it came up with the item not found screen, so when I overrode it, it wasn't attached anyway. She said I was wrong, and to let the register take off whatever it wanted.
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