Archived Coupon Questions

[sfbguy]

I've been at Spot as a Sales Floor TM for a few months now, and it has just now dawned on me that I have no clue how to handle coupons at the register when I'm backing up. I've just been lucky enough that guests haven't used them when I'm up there. Where do the coupons go once you've scanned them? And is there anything that is really important to know about our coupon policy? Thanks!

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Ask your gsa or gstl for help. Coupon policy was in your training guides.

 

[Amaazingdude]

I've been at Spot as a Sales Floor TM for a few months now, and it has just now dawned on me that I have no clue how to handle coupons at the register when I'm backing up. I've just been lucky enough that guests haven't used them when I'm up there. Where do the coupons go once you've scanned them? And is there anything that is really important to know about our coupon policy? Thanks!

Don't override coupons. If it doesn't scan call your GSA over and flash your light.

 

[asidius]

There should be a drawer next to the register that has a place for coupons, Redcard apps, and giftcards.

 

[ThatGSGirl]

If you log on the work bench you can view all of the policies! The positions are at the top of the page, I believe it's under "front end, cashier, coupon policy" Something along those lines!

 

[Vulpix]

Don't override coupons. If it doesn't scan call your GSA over and flash your light.

At my store the GSA overrides pretty much any coupon and tells us to just do it. we are not to flash our lights for that. We pretty much just give away the store in the name of "being bold".

 

[Amaazingdude]

At my store the GSA overrides pretty much any coupon and tells us to just do it. we are not to flash our lights for that. We pretty much just give away the store in the name of "being bold".

At my store we coach team members for doing it. I guess it depends on the store.

 

[Flabbergasted]

I guess it depends on the store.

Pretty much. My ETL-AP is the exact opposite of @Vulpix's AP, I'm sure. She doesn't believe in coupons or price matching, and goes out of her way to make those two things as difficult as possible. If the register requires a supervisor override for a coupon? You hand back the coupon and apologize to the guest. Same thing with price matching. No overrides.

 

[Vulpix]

I wish our store was like that. I have actually been talked to because I tried to enforce the coupon policy. I was told we have to do everything to make the guest happy and a few dollars won't hurt us. I asked, what about obvious coupon scammers, you know, the ones that use coupons for wrong items or travel size when it clearly says a larger size only. Same answer, make the guest happy. Hell, we even override WIC to allow gourmet cheese and cereal like Trix- my store is the place to go if you're a coupon scammer or want to commit WIC fraud.

 

[mrknownothing]

I guess it depends on the store.

This. As @commiecorvus often says, ASANTS.

 

[dani346]

I also have a few questions about coupons...

1. How are you supposed to process the coupons that look kind of like checks and have the guests name on them? They usually say $5 off a certain product, I just enter them as a $5 manufacturer coupon and put it with the others. Is that wrong?

2. If you scan the coupon and it asks if the coupon is in the purchase should you just hit accept anyway? I always do because it's not usually much and I'm honestly never really sure if it's in the purchase, and it's more of a pain to try to read it all abd explain to the 'guest' that it didn't go through.

3. How many of the same manufacturer coupons can you use on one product?

Obviously they didn't train me well and I'm a full time cashier but was hired for seasonal.

 

[masterofalltrades]

here are some answers
1. those are rebate checks not coupons. to process them hit total 1st, ask for id , as they are only to be used by the intended recipient. then, press k5 other checks, then k2 rebate check, and put in the machine to be endorsed.
2.if they have a few asin 3-5 coupons in the purchase then yes hit k1. but if they have a lot of coupons then you need to be more careful. this is especially true with p&g brandsaver coupons. they work for all p&g products. so scammers will use higher value tide coupons on febreeze products banking on the cashier not reading the coupon.
if you think you have a scammer take only 1 like p&g coupon per purchase, as they all say in red 1 like coupon per transaction, limit 4 per household per day.
3. you may use. up to 4 like coupons, but only 1 manufacture per item. example: aguest is buying 2 cans of febreze, he hands 4 febreze coupons. you should only take 2, eventhough 4 probably would work if they have other p&g items.

4. all coupons must be originals they are void if copied transfered or sold. if a guest hands you a lot of coupons and they are cut on the same angle i would call the gst because they are probably fraud.
this works for my very high risk store, but remember all stores are not the same. your store may be looser or stricter.

 

[doodlebug]

I wish our store was like that. I have actually been talked to because I tried to enforce the coupon policy. I was told we have to do everything to make the guest happy and a few dollars won't hurt us. I asked, what about obvious coupon scammers, you know, the ones that use coupons for wrong items or travel size when it clearly says a larger size only. Same answer, make the guest happy. Hell, we even override WIC to allow gourmet cheese and cereal like Trix- my store is the place to go if you're a coupon scammer or want to commit WIC fraud.

Omg you can override WIC?? I was told NEVER to override unless I was 100% sure it was legit and WIC approved. And after I override anything, I have to send it into Mysupport. They said that the store gets fined some obscure amount of money for every override for a non-eligible product.

 

[dave white]

Pretty much. My ETL-AP is the exact opposite of @Vulpix's AP, I'm sure. She doesn't believe in coupons or price matching, and goes out of her way to make those two things as difficult as possible. If the register requires a supervisor override for a coupon? You hand back the coupon and apologize to the guest. Same thing with price matching. No overrides.

All it takes is a pissed off guest to call guest relations and your STL should be up your ETLs ass all day and night, plus weekends, for not price matching when we do in fact price match. Send the guest to guest service for price matches.

 

[Flabbergasted]

All it takes is a pissed off guest to call guest relations and your STL should be up your ETLs ass all day and night, plus weekends, for not price matching when we do in fact price match. Send the guest to guest service for price matches.

We do price match, just not for large price differences where an override is required.

 

[signingminion]

Omg you can override WIC?? I was told NEVER to override unless I was 100% sure it was legit and WIC approved. And after I override anything, I have to send it into Mysupport. They said that the store gets fined some obscure amount of money for every override for a non-eligible product.

If the store eats the purchase and chooses to not turn in that wic voucher, wic doesn't care. But target has to pay for the full transaction. Otherwise points and fines and scary bad stuff.

 

[queencat]

I also have a few questions about coupons...

1. How are you supposed to process the coupons that look kind of like checks and have the guests name on them? They usually say $5 off a certain product, I just enter them as a $5 manufacturer coupon and put it with the others. Is that wrong?

2. If you scan the coupon and it asks if the coupon is in the purchase should you just hit accept anyway? I always do because it's not usually much and I'm honestly never really sure if it's in the purchase, and it's more of a pain to try to read it all abd explain to the 'guest' that it didn't go through.

3. How many of the same manufacturer coupons can you use on one product?

Obviously they didn't train me well and I'm a full time cashier but was hired for seasonal.

1. Like these? Total -> Other Checks -> Rebate Checks -> Enter amount, let the check reader scan. Put them in the check draw.

2. I check but there are some coupons that come up asking if the item is in the purchase even when it is.

3. 1 manufacturer, 1 target, 1 cartwheel offer.

 

[Jill of All Trades]

I have kind of a complicated coupon question.

Pedigree dog treats has a manufacturer BOGO out. Target also has a BOGO out on pedigree dog treats. We sell the treats for $2.99 and the coupon rings up as $4.02 The guest had eight bags of treats and four of each kind of coupon. She clearly thought it was going to be a moneymaker and even argued with me a little about it. What I ended up doing was ringing a manual $12 manufacturer coupon (because I wasn't being prompted to change the value of the manufacturer BOGO) and scanning the Target BOGOs. So she ended up getting all eight bags for free, but no overage.

Was this kosher, or did I do something wrong? She was using only one target and one manufacturer coupon per item so it seems fine to me, but I'm not sure.

 

[doodlebug]

Unless there's some fine print on the coupons that states otherwise, it sounds fine to me. And you did the right thing with manually entering the coupon. I always tell the cashiers to manually enter coupons with free items...the manufacturer isn't going to reimburse Target $4 when we sell the product for $3.

 

[Retail Girl]

We do price match, just not for large price differences where an override is required.

Your ETL-AP doesn't get to make up rules like that simply because they don't want to price match it. Sure, they can and should enforce the limit one of the exact item (with online matches) but to deny a legitimate price match because they don't want to do it is wrong, on so many levels. If a guest gets pissy and calls corporate, there will be all sorts of people jumping to make that one right.

 

[PinkZinnia]

I have kind of a complicated coupon question.

Pedigree dog treats has a manufacturer BOGO out. Target also has a BOGO out on pedigree dog treats. We sell the treats for $2.99 and the coupon rings up as $4.02 The guest had eight bags of treats and four of each kind of coupon. She clearly thought it was going to be a moneymaker and even argued with me a little about it. What I ended up doing was ringing a manual $12 manufacturer coupon (because I wasn't being prompted to change the value of the manufacturer BOGO) and scanning the Target BOGOs. So she ended up getting all eight bags for free, but no overage.

Was this kosher, or did I do something wrong? She was using only one target and one manufacturer coupon per item so it seems fine to me, but I'm not sure.

Jill, was this for this week? I can not find any coupons for pedigree dog treats bogo.. that is not typical for most coupons. The only one I found for pedigree (on legit coupon sites) is for 1.00 off any two pedigree stackerz. I won't go to the bogus websites because they usually cause some kind of rogue virus crap on the computer.. It's not often that a manufacturer is going to give much away - the purpose of coupons is to see whether people are purchasing the product.
Have you ever gone to coupon information center website? It is very enlightening.. http://www.couponinformationcenter.com/ and look at the counterfeit notifications page.. I know many of target's AP's don't want to deal with it and accept the coupons all the time, but in the end we are hurting ourselves.
If target wants to stay uneducated about the coupons, then it's their loss - or the loss for everyone who works for target in the form of raises..scam couponing hurts everyone.

Our GSTL’s and ETL-AP are very coupon conscience. Target does not get reimbursed for counterfeit coupons and they understand that.. There are many coupon scammers out there and many will Target (ha ha) the new cashiers. That's why we always
ask cashiers to flip on their lights when something doesn't look right. Sometimes it’s almost impossible to pick out a fake coupon, but after a while you get to understand the pattern of the people using them.

When our cashiers flip on their light to have someone look at the coupons and our usual scammers see me or one of the other gstl's walking over, they just tell the cashier to forget the whole sale - we put the items aside and then ring them up in training mode later- they become recoveries. Most in excess of 2-3 hundred dollars. Sometimes we can get a few of those a day (depending what the scam deals are being talked about on the internet), so we are somewhat helping Target not make it so easy for the scammers.
One of the problems is learning the difference between a legitimate extreme couponer and a bogus one.. it takes lots of time and practice, which Target doesn’t really want to invest in.. It’s kind of sad that they cry over not making sales, yet they allow people to steal right under their noses.

 

[Jill of All Trades]

I'm probably more well-acquainted with coupons than most at my store. I believe the coupons were legit- they were clipped out of an ad and they weren't for suspiciously high amounts like the counterfeiters who usually hit us. She was also buying quite a few other items with legit coupons- struck me as a smart couponer trying to get a too-good deal, not a scammer. The manufacturer BOGOS were probably old with a long expiration date because target wouldn't make the mistake of having a stackable BOGO if it were a recent coupon.

 

[TargetMitchell]

Those Pedigree coupons are legit. The manufacturer's coupon was released on 1/11/15 and the Target coupon is from last year (12/14/14).

I'm not sure if you can use both the manufacturer and Target coupon together when purchasing two Pedigree dog treats, though. The policy says this:

BOGO coupons cannot be combined (i.e. you cannot use two BOGO coupons on two items and get both for free). Unless stated otherwise on the coupon, the use of one Buy One Get One Free coupon requires that two of the valid items are presented at checkout of which one item will be charged to the guest and the 2nd item will be discounted by its full retail price.

 

[mrknownothing]

My store must've said no to someone because I had to re-shop an entire cart of those things.

 

[Jill of All Trades]

BOGO coupons cannot be combined (i.e. you cannot use two BOGO coupons on two items and get both for free). Unless stated otherwise on the coupon, the use of one Buy One Get One Free coupon requires that two of the valid items are presented at checkout of which one item will be charged to the guest and the 2nd item will be discounted by its full retail price.

I just wonder how that jives with our "one target and one manufacturer coupon per item" policy. One could certainly read it either way.

I'm just afraid that when I ask around to see who is the current coupon expert I'm going to find out that it's me.