Coupon Frenzy: Addicted to the Deal?

I work in retail. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to hold the illustrious position of a sales clerk of any kind, you know what sales days are like. Customers might be patient, lovely, or (hopefully) neutral, which makes everyone’s experience pleasant and efficient. Even if there are complaints or disappointments, not much is made of it because ultimately its just stuff, right? Just things to be purchased and owned. Its not like a wedding or funeral or other such important once-in-a-lifetime cultural event. It isn’t even as though the things being bought and sold are essential for comfort or sustenance. Most everyone can understand this concept and deal with momentary dissatisfaction or not getting exactly what they want in an acceptable enough manner. Good.
Worse than complainers about how things “used to be” or how “another store” does things, worse than people who take simple business transactions personally or those who go on the attack at the first utterance of the word “no,” are people who cannot get something cheap enough. I’m talking about the people who complain that clearance prices are too high and insist on talking to a manager. Those folks who think they understand how a retail establishment does things and then attempt to operate within those imaginary parameters. Those who wield multiple coupons and want to do multiple transactions, or gripe when the standard response to an inquiry of coupon combining is “Sorry, we can’t.”
I love saving money. My particular brand of retail is in used items, and since working there I have changed the way I look at stuff for sale. I like to shop second-hand for clothes and feel much better about recycled ‘new’ items (I’m a total sucker, actually). I wear things until they disintegrate, trade with friends and shop clearance sections first. I love shopper’s cards at the grocery store. I will hand make, repurpose and experiment with things like deodorant if it means one less thing to buy. Sales, of course, are great. I couldn’t care less if big retailers have super smart marketing teams who devise new and insidious ways of getting me to spend more money while I think I am saving big bucks. Its a great feeling to walk out of a store and have proof in hand of what I would have spent pre-savings. But it doesn’t go any further than that.
Couponing has become “extreme” since the economic recession of 2008. There was a T.V. show, a boom in blogs about coupon clipping, and articles in top magazines about the subject. If one were to dedicate the time and energy into saving money like the people who are featured on nightly news spots, then one could conceivably save a lot of money. Its a tempting idea. When I first began shopping for food for myself (coincidentally, in 2008), I began to hate the idea of spending so much money on food. Friends of mine shared similar opinions. It wasn’t just an aspect of learning to be on my own; something about forking over good money for food that could easily turn into a failed experiment in the back of the fridge or else spoil quickly seemed wrong. Maybe it had to do with the necessity of food and somehow I felt like I was being ripped off because I actually had to pay up to eat. In spite of my new awareness, nothing ever came of it. I shop Kroger the traditional way, being sure to check the price per unit tag and using my own bags. Still, as I browse through articles about couponing even now, I briefly entertain the idea of getting it together enough to clip coupons. (Who knows, maybe I’ll end up blogging about my conversion to couponing one day?)
Economics aside, I still don’t understand that customer from earlier. I want to say, “Explain to me why you think $3.00 is too much for this.” Nonessential stuff, people. Not food. Not clothing. Not shelter. Just things. Do these people care about the item they are buying or the deal they are getting? During my shift at the register today, I heard “what a deal!” several times. Customers’ attitudes will swiftly change from the Dr. Jekyll model of somewhat normal to the hideous nature of Mr. Hyde all because of coupons. An otherwise friendly matronly type today turned on her heel and marched away from me, stony-faced after I politely reminded her that her coupon only worked once. She wasn’t exactly rude and to be fair, is probably not a bad person in the real world. She just really had to have that damn piece of paper with its precious barcode in her clutches. My tut-tutting wasn’t going to dissuade her.
With Black Friday approaching and the increase in reports of Black Thursday I keep hearing, I have to wonder if its the stuff people are after or the sweet deals themselves.