Thanks MARTIN for stopping Coupon Acceptance At Tesco and it would now seem Waitrose

iamana1ias

monkeyspanner wrote: »

This site is a fantastic resource for many of us and Martin should be applauded for setting it up. Presumeably he needs also to make a living and part of this is by making TV appearances.

He's not a multi-millionnaire by accident, love.

Zara33

confused969 wrote: »

i do budget, maybe you have some tips for us all regarding budgeting, do you have much experience of feeding a family of 5 on a budget?

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.html?s=&daysprune=&f=33 Loads of tips here!

Hey_Dude

The man said "As long as you don't take the Mick...."

Whilst undoubtedly the people who abused the coupon policy contributed to Tesco's decision there is a wider issue.

(The Sun article BTW is interesting as a MSE thread promoted the dog food voucher.)

Anyhow the 'regular' couponers who would shop day-after-day, week-after-week armed with £££s of coupons are primarily responsible for bringing the house down.

They haven't done anything wrong as such, but it is inevitable, as the number of couponers grew, that Tesco would clamp down.

Maybe Martin's words made things happen quicker, maybe not.

But he is not responsible - cause and effect - the cause was the couponer.

Duder

swannee_D_3

jackyjack wrote: »

get over it - learn how to budget properly

hey thanks jackkack...you got any more great tips for us moneysavers!!:rolleyes:

Li0nhead

Simply feel that strongly withdraw your custom from that supermarket. If it costs Tesco more in lost customers than the cupons cost. Tesco would find out through market reasearch why these customers are not shopping with them and change their minds.

I think Tesco were aware but with it going out on TV everyone 'could' do it. So tesco were happy for us to do it just to keep us going though their doors but don't want everyone doing it.

Stop shopping with them and they will get the message. Market share is very important to them.

MrsE_2

halojones wrote: »

I went to my local Tesco's last night and was told I could use NO coupons :eek:.

Do you mean they just don't take any coupons anymore?

Even if you have bought the product

confused969

Li0nhead wrote: »

Simply feel that strongly withdraw your custom from that supermarket. If it costs Tesco more in lost customers than the cupons cost. Tesco would find out through market reasearch why these customers are not shopping with them and change their minds.

I think Tesco were aware but with it going out on TV everyone 'could' do it. So tesco were happy for us to do it just to keep us going though their doors but don't want everyone doing it.

Stop shopping with them and they will get the message. Market share is very important to them.

exactly what i intend to do

Quentin

Tesco didn't take coupons as cash out of some altruistic motive to help moneysavers pay less for their shopping.

It's a great profit maker for them. (They make a lot more by taking coupons as cash, customers buy more expensive products when they are paying with coupons, there is no staff "pilferage", the coupons are worth more than their face value due to the handling fee that is added, there are no bank charges for card transactions, cash counting etc).

Tesco get reimbursed for the coupons by the supplier. Buried in the conditions of being a supplier is a clause that Tesco won't "police" coupons at the tills to ensure the conditions are met unless the supplier issues "Tesco specific" coupons meaning customers must use the coupons only at Tesco. Should Tesco not get reimbursed for the coupons via normal channels, their suppliers contract allows them to deduct coupons taken from the suppliers payments.

Up till now, Tesco have had the upper hand over this as it's a buyers market, and suppliers cannot really afford to fall out with them, and at the end of the day the supplier has agreed to the clause in the contract.

But because of the nationwide publicity, things have changed, and suppliers' solicitors have been able to use this now open knowledge of what has been going on quietly for years to put pressure on Tesco regarding their contract and clear abuse they have been subjecting their suppliers to all this time.

The publicity has caused an upsurge of coupons being used and Tesco now have cold feet that they are no longer going to be able to treat suppliers in the previous cavalier fashion and just deduct the value of coupons handed in off their bills without normal proof the coupon has been used properly and the product bought.

Who do you think really paid for the abuse by Tesco of coupons?

Former_MSE_Guy

Read the news story: Tesco outlaws 'wrong item' vouchers

Former_MSE_Archna

Martin is away at the moment but has asked me to post this message from him...

“I'm saddened to hear of some nasty posts on here about Tesco's change of policy (see the Tesco changes coupon policy and would ask those whose vitriole may’ve overtaken them to step back a second and think about it.

• Do you want MSE and I to become a discrete users club?
  
  Is this what people want. A small club of those in the know pushing the system. If we did – who would be in the in-crowd, when would we’ve locked the forum down so only existing members could share hidden info? How many is enough?
  
  The policy of the site (and I) has always been to reach as many people as possible and spread information, both on hard and soft financial subjects. I believe we’ve done it well and the vast range of users is a great credit to that. We’re very proud of it and don’t intend to change it – this will never be a private members club only for those in the know.
  
  Yet of course, with some of the techniques, which mean perhaps a disproportionate amount of money going into people's pockets and out of companies, there comes a critical mass reached where it ends (and here it's only for one supermarket so far).
  
  We’ve had it with countless issues before – intro bank account freebies with no need to change salary – balance transfer bonuses payments – cashback on 0% deals – bonus points boots on low costs goods. People use them then at some point someone in an organisation realises that financially it doesn’t add up.

• There’s been a push from manufacturers for this to happen
  
  The change of policy by Tesco has been a long time in the coming. There has been a huge amount of pressure put on the supermarkets by the Institute of Sales Promotions – they originally contacted us making threatening noises equating people using the wrong coupons as theft (See the ISP theft news story).
  
  The trade press who cover this have made a splash of the use of these coupons for the last year, and the manufacturers displeasure. The ISP has undergone a lobbying change to stop supermarkets accepting them for non-use – as it's the manufacturers who pay.
  
  This was targeted as I remember at the users of the MSE forums and some individuals who pushed the boundaries on it as well as our coupons guide – where the possibility of being upfront and asking if vouchers were accepted has always been a part.
  
  From that moment there has been strong lobbying on the ‘misuse’ of vouchers to the supermarkets – as it is the manufacturers who bear the brunt.
  
  Of course we robustly defended the forum users. To start trying to point the finger at anyone isn’t of any use at all – and it certainly isn’t what this site or this forum is or at least should be about.
  
  However at that time my aim was to try and hope that those who used the ‘non-purchase’ coupons route would do it within limits and not go overboard. We worked hard on the prose used on the site to about it – i’ve been consistent in my broadcasts on it – as well as doing the story about the ISP to try and stop mass abuse e.g. multi-using the same voucher or using self-service tills – or anything else which breaks terms or is dishonest.
  
  Apparently in the last week there’s been a specific high value voucher that’s been used and from what I understand – quite substantially abused – and sadly when these flood through the tills – someone sits up and takes notice – Tesco is a bottom line organisation after all.

• Growth and publicity has of course contributed to it.
  
  The growth of easy to print online coupons means that voucher repeatability has grown rapidly. There are now a wide number of coupon sites as Im sure you’re aware – and of course our own Grocery Coupons page. There are also a wide number of forums big and small, where people discuss the use of coupons for non bought products.
  
  As apparently some vitriole was aimed at my GMTV appearance, before doing so it is worth watching what was said (watch it yourself) – all of it is balanced about how and whether you should do it rather than a big encouraging factor.
  
  In fact the influence of that appearance is no where near as big as you may assume, certainly it doesn’t even register compared to the traffic from putting the grocery coupon note in the weekly email.
  
  Yet of course it is publicity for the issue, and there is a chance that it had an effect, though if you do a press search you can see the issue of coupons and vouchers has grown from zero about 18 months ago to a regular stream now. All the newspapers have got in on it – with most now running their own voucher sites.
  
  All of this combined of course changes the critical mass of voucher usage and quite possibly played a role.

So who’s to blame? Is it the site and I for telling people? The people who abused the high value vouchers? Forum users for sharing tips which the ISP monitored? All the new people who’ve started doing this who want to save money? The manufacturers for protecting their bottom line? The supermarkets who did it in the first place?

Why do we need to blame someone... the fact is Tesco has changed its policy, the issue is one that’s obviously grown for the supermarket. We know there’s been inconsistency branch by branch in the past – we’ve even asked and helped intervene for forum users about this.

Now there is consistency and we don’t like the answer; but frankly in the same way you can’t blame the shop that says no to haggling; this was always possible. Hopefully we can stop pointing the finger and carrying on looking how people can save.
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