Friday, April 1, 2011

Coupon shopping at Wal-Mart (how do I do that?)

Since I posted my Wal-Mart trip yesterday, I thought I'd start there. 

Wal-Mart has changed their coupon policy a couple of times in the past month, but this is the newest one:

Walmart Coupon Policy


We gladly accept the following types of coupons*
  • Print-at-home internet coupons
    • Must be legible
    • Must have "Manufacturer Coupon" printed on them
    • Must have a valid remit address for the manufacturer
    • Must have a valid expiration date
    • Must have a scannable bar code
    • Buy one, get one free (BOGO) coupons with a specified price
    • Are acceptable in black and white or color
    • May not be duplicated
  • Manufacturers' coupons
    • For dollar/cents off
    • For free items (except those printed off the Internet)
    • Buy one, get one free (BOGO) coupons
    • Must have "Manufacturer Coupon" printed on them
    • Must have a valid remit address for the manufacturer
    • Must have a valid expiration date
    • Must have a scannable bar code
    • May not be duplicated
  • Competitors' coupons
    • A specific item for a specified price, for example, $2.99
    • Buy one, get one free (BOGO) coupons for items with a specified price
    • Have a valid expiration date
    • Are acceptable in black and white
  • Soft drink container caps
  • Checkout coupons ("Catalinas")
    • Printed at our competitors' registers for dollar/cents off on a specific item
    • Must have "Manufacturer Coupon" with specific item requirements printed on them
    • Must have a valid remit address for the manufacturer
    • Must have a valid expiration date
    • Must have a scannable bar code
    • Are acceptable in black and white
    • May not be duplicated
We DO NOT accept the following coupons:
  • Checkout coupons
    • Dollars/cents off the entire basket purchase
    • Percentage off the entire basket purchase
  • Print-at-home Internet coupons that require no purchase
  • Competitors' coupons
    • Dollars/cents off at a specific retailer
    • Percentage off
    • Buy one, get one free (BOGO) coupons without a specified price
    • Double- or triple-value coupons
*The following are guidelines and limitations:
  • We only accepts coupons for merchandise that we sell.
  • Coupons must be presented at the time of purchase.
  • Only one coupon per item.
  • Item purchased must be identical to the coupon (size, quantity, brand, flavor, color, etc).
  • There is no limit on the number of coupons per transaction.
  • Coupons must have an expiration date and be redeemed prior to expiration.
  • If coupon value exceeds the price of the item, the excess may be given to the customer as cash or applied toward the basket purchase.
  • WIC or SNAP items purchased in a WIC or SNAP transaction are ineligible for cash back or application to the basket purchase.
  • Great Value, Marketside, Equate, Parents Choice, and World Table coupons have no cash value and are ineligible for cash back or application to the basket purchase.
  • The system will prompt for supervisor verification for:
    • 40 coupons per transaction.
    • A coupon of $20 or greater on one item
    • $50 or more in coupons in one transaction
Download our Coupon Policy

It never hurts to print this out and take it with you should you ever have an "issue" with a cashier not wanting to accept your coupons when you know you are doing things correctly...and this does happen.

Wal-Mart has us American's duped into thinking they are the cheapest store around, they definitely are not!  As a matter of fact, an study was recently conducted that showed Target was beating them on the items people cared most about.  You can read that article here:

http://shopping.yahoo.com/articles/yshoppingarticles/562/low-low-prices-target-beats-wal-mart

Since I have been couponing for about 4 and a half years now and have a nice stockpile, I find that I rarely have a need to go to Wal-Mart, and it seems that when I do go, it's just to use up some coupons which will be giving overage, which I will explain momentarily.  The thing about Wal-Mart is that their price is just their price.  They don't offer store coupons and they usually don't put out a sales ad.  They do price match other stores' ads which is nice when the other store is out of the item, but if you'd have gone to the original store, there's a possibility that you'd have gotten a catalina coupon for your purchase, and you won't get anything back at Wal-Mart.  They also accept competitor coupons as noted in their coupon policy above, but it can't be a dollars or cents off type coupon, it must state a specific price on it.

OK, back to overage.  What that means is that you have a coupon which has a face value over the price the store is charging for an item, and this does happen quite a lot.  Some stores will adjust the face value of the coupon to make it the price they are charging for the item, but Wal-Mart will redeem that coupon for the whole face value.  The reason for this is that the stores are reimbursed for the whole value of the coupon regardless of what they "write" on it, so Wal-Mart is giving you that extra money instead of pocketing it themselves like other stores tend to do.  Their coupon policy states that you can either have that money back in cash (a negative balance) or you can apply that money to the remainder of your purchases.  I prefer to do the latter, I just pick up enough items to absorb that overage.  I like to buy things that rarely have coupons such as produce or pop or even clothing needs.  The reason I prefer not to get cash back is because I fear Wal-Mart may "take notice" of people making money and remove that whole portion about overage in their policy. 

Occassionally, Wal-Mart does put out a sales ad.  On those occassions, if you go in to get an item from the ad and they happen to be out of it, ask for a raincheck.  (I will be talking about rainchecks more in the future.)  They will most likely tell you they don't give rainchecks, but they do.  Just grab that sales ad, flip it over to the back page, and show them the fine print way down at the bottom.  They will probably act dumbfounded, call a manager over who will also act dumbfounded, and end up offering you a substitution.  I am thinking of the Heinz ketchup last spring.  They had the 40 oz. bottles for $1.00, but when they sold out, they went back and got me 2 24 oz. bottles for each 40 oz. bottle that I wanted to buy.  It ended up being more ketchup for me at the same price as I'd have been paying had they had the item in stock.

Well, there's Wal-Mart in a nutshell.  Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions!

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