Changes coming to Albertsons Twice The Value Coupons!!!

A HUGE Thanks to Queen Bee Coupons for letting us know about this:

It wasn’t long after I posted What’s going on with Albertsons Doublers? when I got the official answer from Albertsons via e-mail this morning.

Here is an excerpt from the e-mail from corporate SUPERVALU –

We’re really excited that so many shoppers are enthusiastic about our Twice the Valuecoupons at certain Albertsons (IMW) locations, and we’ve seen a significant increase in shoppers who are using them.

Unfortunately, we’ve seen many people taking advantage of this special offer, so we’ve decided to stop providing extra inserts at our store locations. As of July 17th, the only way to have access to the promotional inserts that include our Twice the Value coupons will be to purchase a Sunday newspaper. I want to make it clear that we’re still offering and honoring our Twice the Value coupons, but to limit the number of shoppers who are using more than three in any given shopping trip we will not have extra coupons at our store locations.

Our stores in Montana and Wyoming have a historically low redemption rate of our special Twice the Value coupons, so in these specific markets we’ve decided discontinue offering our special savings inserts in Sunday newspapers as well. Since shoppers in these stores don’t appear to be finding value in these coupons, we’ve decided to use this as an opportunity to try new ways to share savings and value with our customers.

I know that many of you were not “taking advantage” or abusing the doublers and now you will have to purchase a paper or get a newspaper subscription to get your doublers. Sucks. I know. But I did hear horror stories of people going in and grabbing stacks of 20-4o doubler sheets from customer service and this completely goes against the intent of the promotion.

It is a bummer for the average consumer who wants to save a measly $3 with doublers and now has to spend $1 on a paper. It does make the doubler a little bit of an elitist promotion, right? If it’s not available for you unless you get the paper. I’m disappointed about that.

I try to be a devil’s advocate and think about all sides of this. So the promotion was being abused. People were literally doing dozens and dozens of transactions (not three). They were holding up lines (bad for other customers) and walking out of the stores paying only pennies for carts full of groceries. Albertsons is losing money on these transactions, every one of them, if they are walking out with FREE groceries and not doing other shopping in the stores. So do they STOP the whole program? Or just try and impose limits to combat the abuse?

If you live in the delivery area for the Tacoma News Tribune you can get the Sunday paper delivered for $1 a copy (minimum three copies) – so you are guaranteed at least three sets of doublers. I know it’s not ideal, but if you can’t live without your doublers, it might be your only option. Plus you’ll get your other coupon inserts. If you don’t live in the News Tribune delivery area, you can check with your local paper to see if they carry doublers and if they have a subscription promotion.

Albertsons WANTS to hear from you – The e-mail ended asking for feedback from me and my readers about how we might see couponing evolve at Albertsons.

Do you want to see exclusive coupons on Facebook? Are you finding value in our email savings program? Whatever feedback your readers give us is going straight to our interactive marketing team, and we’re really enthusiastic about trying new ways to share coupons.

Personally I’d love it if Albertsons would switch to automatic doubling, no clipping doubler paper coupons – but rather a doubler promotion set up like the Midwest and other areas of the states are lucky to have – where the register just doublers a certain number of coupons automatically. This way they could limit it based on shopper card and/or number per day. But then we wouldn’t need to “pay to save” which is what it has now become – and which I think is a serious bummer.