Coupon Policy Change at Gerbes

Well … we all knew it was going to happen.

Coupon policy at Gerbes, which is a daughter company of Dillons, on Broadway location, has instituted few changes to protect their customers.

The customer service rep was very friendly and sympathetic to the changes, but their reasons to change few rules are to protect ALL of their customers (including couponers).

I know many of you have gone to the grocery store and discover shelves being totally emptied out!  Not only this inconvenience really mess up with your plans (especially if’s MEGA sale items where you are required to purchase specific number of products), but it also means that you have to make another trip to the grocery store.

This happened to me more than once and it can be quite annoying.  I had to wait extra 3-4 days before the next shipment comes to the store, and the coupons you were going to use may have expired.

Thank goodness the changes are not major, and guidelines are quite simple to work with.

Things that stayed the same:
1.  They will still double coupons up to a $1.00
2.  You CANNOT stack coupons: i.e. cannot combine e-coupons (or digital coupons) to the paper manufacturer’s coupons.
3.  The e-coupons (digital coupons) will go through first so be careful what kind of digital coupons you load onto your Gerbes Card.

Things that has changed:
1.  There are limits … you can use 5 like coupons per transaction.  The store limits the “like coupons” is to avoid shelf clearing.
2.  There are NO overages.  For instance, if you buy something for $0.75 and have a coupon for $0.55/1 the coupon will double up to the value of the product (not $1.00); which is $0.75.
3.  Coupons starting with “9″ and “7″ bar code will not double up to a $1.00.  The computer will read it and will not allow doubling process … Period.
4.  Coupons that say “DO NOT DOUBLE” may not double even if the bar codes may start with “5.”  It’s up to the computer program … so you might be taking a chance and the cashier will not automatically double it into the register.

With all that said … honest couponers, like myself and many of you, are left with repercussion of inconsiderate couponers.

I really do try my best not to clear out the shelves … if I have more than 10 like items I always pre-order and PICK IT UP.  For instance, I pre-ordered and picked up 20 Huggies Wet Wipes (and received $5.00 CAT even though I didn’t buy diapers).  Apparently there has been lots of people pre-ordering and not picking them up as well; which in turn the store has to eat the extra merchandises.

With that said … couponing allows me to stretch my grocery budget (but also it is fun as heck), and to make my life easier; however, I do NOT coupon to make money off stores (i.e. you see on Extreme couponing show that a lady goes out the store with $150 gift card).

I honestly understand why Gerbes store decided to modify their coupon policies; anything extreme will have an impact … in this case coupon policy change.