Coupon-using consumers pointed to
deals
BY ANNA GUIDO
| ENQUIRER CONTRIBUTOR
 |
Montelle LeVering is co-founder
of The Grocery Advantage, a service for shoppers now
operating in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.
|
Today is one of the biggest days of the year for grocery store
coupons, and Pam Beneker is poised to take advantage of it.
Beneker, of Brookville, Ind., subscribes to a new local
Internet service that shows consumers how to save on groceries by
finding the best deals at area grocery stores and using coupons
most efficiently.
The service, The Grocery Advantage, was launched in Greater
Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky in December after opening in
Columbus a year ago. It has more than 2,000 subscribers.
"I've been couponing for several years now and thought I was
pretty thorough on catching the deals," Beneker said. "But after
viewing the Grocery Advantage reports, I realized I was missing a
lot."
Subscribers such as Beneker pay $15 to use The Grocery
Advantage Web site, where they find local reports listing sale
items at area Kroger and Meijer stores. They use the reports to
find the best savings and to identify which coupons will help them
save the most by matching them with the sale items and coupon
promotions.
The detailed report lists the retail cost of a product and its
cost savings with markdowns and coupons.
Kroger and Meijer are the only stores the service analyzes
because they have the best deals when combined with coupons, said
Michael Berberick, who founded the service with his wife, Montelle
LeVering.
Bigg's was not competitive, said Berberick. And although
Wal-Mart supercenters are typically reported as having the lowest
prices, Berberick says The Grocery Advantage system regularly
beats its prices.
"Several weeks ago we analyzed our best deals and compared them
with everyday low prices at the one Wal-Mart Supercenter already
in Cincinnati (in Fort Wright)," Berberick said. "The 125 items
would cost about $265 at Wal-Mart and only $65 at Kroger and
Meijer.
"We have data that shows price comparisons including shopping
at Wal-Mart with and without coupons vs. Kroger and Meijer. Most
people do not realize how great the savings can be at Kroger and
Meijer. These kind of savings are not available at Wal-Mart."
Today will be a big coupon Sunday, says Berberick, because the
first Sunday of the year is a day when coupon volume traditionally
is heavy.
"Most Sundays there are 75 to 125 coupons," he said. "The first
Sundays for the past two years there have been 150 to 250 coupons.
And if a person picks up an extra set of coupons, they can start
off with 300-500 coupons from this weekend."
Decline in use Use of coupons has been declining since
the early 1990s, according to a Cornell University study last
March of coupon discount methods.
In 2002, manufacturers of Consumer Packaged Goods distributed
about 248 billion coupons worth almost $220 billion. Of those,
consumers redeemed only $3.8 billion on their packaged goods
purchases.
The study said the growing number of families where both parents
work has hurt coupon use, because families are too busy to take
the time to clip and organize coupons.
The study also found that more respondents preferred shopper
cards.
However, a tight economy has meant consumers nationally are trying
harder to save money. So The Grocery Advantage may have hit the
market at the right time, according to analysts.
"It's a very interesting and timely service because price is
becoming increasingly important to shoppers," said Jon Hauptman
with Willard Bishop Consulting, a Barrington, Ill.-based
consulting firm that follows the retail food industry.
Cindy Hall of Park Hills subscribed to The Grocery Advantage the
first week in December.
"I thought it was a scam, especially because of the membership
fee," Hall said. "I thought there was no way I could save $15 a
month. But how I was wrong!"
Hall said she also values the time savings.
"They do all the legwork for you. They even tell you what aisle
items are in, for certain stores."
Beneker said she likes the interactive Web site because it
allows her to sort items according to her needs and print a report
that she can take on shopping trips.
She said her use of coupons with in-store markdowns typically
has cut her grocery bill in half. And she expects to save more
once she gets proficient with The Grocery Advantage system.
Todd Hultquist, a spokesman for the Food Marketing Institute in
Washington, D.C., said it's not just competition from the growing
variety of grocery retailers that makes a business such as The
Grocery Advantage viable.
Different specials and deals, such as coupons from newspaper
inserts, coupons from product manufacturer Web sites, loyalty card
programs and in-store sales, make it hard for the consumer to keep
up.
"It seems like this business is trying to bring everything
together for consumers," Hultquist said.
Expansion in 2005 Though The Grocery Advantage system
tends to steer shoppers toward Kroger (and Meijer), Kroger
spokesman Art Wulfeck declined to endorse the service.
But he added Kroger is "certainly in favor" of customers saving
money.
Wulfeck said watching for weekly specials and using
manufacturers' coupons, which are always doubled up to a dollar,
"is a combination that makes purchasing product at Kroger pretty
attractive to our customer."
Berberick and LeVering plan to launch The Grocery Advantage in
Cleveland and in Orange County, Calif. in 2005.
"We were set to launch in Cleveland (before Cincinnati),"
Berberick said. But then the couple read about the 10 Wal-Mart
supercenters opening or planned for Greater Cincinnati and
Northern Kentucky as well as the closing of 21 Thriftway stores.
"We thought we should take advantage of all the grocery store
activity here first," Berberick said.
E-mail aguido@fuse.net
In his work with Andersen Consulting, Michael Berberick, 44,
used to redesign companies to make them run more efficiently. He
was an associate partner when he left the Chicago firm in 2002 to
spend more time with his family - wife Montelle LeVering, 40, and
their seven children.
Berberick didn't have another job at the time, and LeVering had
quit her market research work two years earlier. So they needed to
quickly cut the family's grocery expenses. How, for example, could
the couple - who rarely used coupons - avoid paying more than $4 a
pound for chicken that sold other weeks for $1.69?
This is where Berberick's experience with Andersen came into
play and how the idea for their company - The Grocery Advantage -
was conceived.
"I took a shot at making the system of coupon use a more
efficient process, and in doing so developed our company," he
said.
They worked their system for about two months, then tested it
with a pilot group of 10 families who met at their home in
Columbus on Monday evenings.
A few months later, in spring 2003, they showcased their
business at a St. Patrick's Day parade in suburban Dublin,
distributing fliers and offering a 30-day free trial of the
service. Berberick said 100 people took the offer and 50 stayed
on.
As they built the company, they continued their consumer
surveys, including at the Ohio State Fair two years in a row,
where Berberick and LeVering learned from more than 2,000
consumers the top reasons why they didn't use coupons: don't have
time, forget to take coupons to the store, the requirement of
multiple purchases, and not finding coupons for the items they
buy.
The company used that information to create a process they say
is quick, efficient and aimed at getting the most out of sales and
coupons. The growth in the number of its subscribers has prompted
its expansion into other markets, including Greater Cincinnati and
Northern Kentucky.
As part of its launch locally, The Grocery Advantage is
donating roughly 33 percent of proceeds (an estimated $10,000 to
$20,000) to the Free Store/Food Bank of Greater Cincinnati.
Anna Guido
