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Thirty-six percent of area households use them at least once a week, a rate that tied Buffalo for third highest in the country behind Milwaukee and Rochester, according to Scarborough Research, a consumer marketing research firm. The national average was 27 percent.
The survey results back up Buffalo's reputation as a town that likes a bargain. Wegmans grocery store chain says Buffalo is its leading market for coupon redemption, followed by Rochester and Syracuse, though the differences in the rates between those three markets is slight.
Coupon redemption at Tops Markets in its Buffalo and Rochester markets has stayed fairly constant compared to a year ago, said Katie McKenna, a spokeswoman for the Amherst-based supermarket chain.
Steve Seraita, executive vice president of sales for Scarborough, said there is a correlation between areas with strong rates of coupon use and high Sunday newspaper readership, since Sunday papers stuffed with inserts remain the leading source of coupons identified by the study.
"I also think couponing has been helped this year by a poor economy, unfortunately," Seraita said. As the economy softens, he said, consumers could be turning to coupons as a way to save money.
Buffalo Niagara's demographics also make it prime territory for coupon redemption, said Dan Fulham, a local supermarket industry veteran who now works with a private equity firm.
"You've got generally two working [parent] families, or a significant amount of retirees who are on a fixed income," Fulham said. Combining those groups creates a large pool of potential coupon users, he said.
New York City-based Scarborough's national data showed that grocery- clipping coupon households spent an average of $114 per week on groceries, $4 more than the national average. The study said coupon users are more likely than the average household to buy grocery items across categories, from coffee and ready-to-eat cereal to yogurt and energy bars.
Scarborough also said that people across all income brackets clip grocery coupons, but households with higher income brackets are slightly more likely to clip them.
CMS, a North Carolina-based coupon processing agent for grocery brands, says use of all types of coupons, not just for grocery items, could rise this year.
In 2007, consumers redeemed 2.6 billion manufacturers' coupons, including for grocery items, which was about the same total as the year before, the firm said. Even though the redemption rate didn't increase, it was the first time there wasn't an annual decline since a high of 7.9 billion coupons redeemed in 1992.
Matthew Tilley, director of marketing for CMS, noted that prior to last year, the economy had been in pretty good shape for the previous 10 or 15 years, going back to the early 1990s recession, when coupon redemption was far higher.
"That has meant that coupons have slowly crept out of everyday life for consumers," Tilley said in a presentation about CMS's 2007 data.
CMS said that through the first half of 2008, consumers' coupon use was essentially unchanged from a year earlier. But the firm sees signs that coupon redemption will increase in the second half of the year.
Wegmans has seen different results. In the most recent 13- week period compared to the same period a year ago, the Rochester-based chain has seen a significant decrease in coupon use in its Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse area markets, said Ann McCarthy, a Wegmans spokeswoman.
Wegmans hasn't studied the trend to determine why the dropoff occurred. But the chain suggested a couple of possible influences. When shoppers are on tight budgets, it is possible they might not be able to afford the multiple items some coupons require. And since some coupons are for newly introduced items, it is possible some shoppers might consider them to be luxury purchases.
While Buffalo's rate of grocery coupon use was among the highest in the country, it was down from 46 percent in a Scarborough study released in 2004 that ranked Buffalo No. 1 in the country. The national average also declined over the same period, from 30 percent to 27 percent.
Scarborough also looked at where consumers obtained cents-off coupons, including for grocery items.
In the Buffalo area, 66 percent of households obtained coupons from the Sunday paper, making that the leading category. Nationally, 53 percent of households said they obtained coupons from the Sunday paper.
Thirty-six percent of Buffalo households acquired coupons through the mail; the third largest source was in-store coupons, at 32 percent. (The total for all 10 categories surveyed exceeded 100 percent.)
Twenty-one percent of Buffalo- area households said they never use coupons, according to Scarborough.
Coupons obtained through the Internet are a small but growing source of coupons. Nationally, 11 percent of households obtained coupons through the Internet in 2007, but that was up 83 percent from 2005, making it the fastest-growing source over that span, Scarborough said.
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