P&G eSaver: As you might have guessed, this is a site for Procter & Gamble e-coupons. You simply go to the website, sign up, enter your club card number (they support a number of supermarket cards in my area), and then load it with coupons. Despite only offering coupons for Procter & Gamble products, the site has a large number of coupons available. For my experiment, I downloaded an e-coupon good for 50 cents off a 6-pack of Charmin bath tissue. I also had a traditional paper coupon good for 25 cents off. At the checkout, I saw the 50 cent e-coupon get applied, and the paper coupon also got applied. I was hoping that would be the case. I was confused, though, when I got home and looked at the receipt. The 50 cent e-coupon did not show up in the Coupon Savings at the bottom of the receipt, but it was listed as CardSav, right underneath the line item on the receipt for the Charmin. Confusing, especially since the Charmin was already on sale. But, I got the e-coupon, that's all that matters!
Shortcuts.com: New to the scene is Shortcuts.com, a service of AOL. Because they are newer, they don't have agreements yet with all the grocery chains. Safeway, for example, is not yet available. Of the 17 stores currently on the list, only two (Fred Meyer [aka Kroger] and QFC) are in my area. You can add a request for a store. Also, right now, the coupon selection is a little sparse, but there are some good coupons there. For the Shortcuts test, I chose a 55 cent e-coupon for Betty Crocker Warm Delights. As you can see, it was very clear on the receipt that the coupon had been redeemed. (By the way, the don't bother with the warm delights...it's way too expensive for what you get: a small plastic bowl, one serving of chocolate cake mix, and some caramel topping. Tasty, but pricy.)
Cellfire.com: I had also hoped to try Cellfire.com, which lets you load coupons onto either your cell phone or your grocery club card (QFC was the only grocery store it listed in my zip code). However, they use text messaging for sending the coupons to your phone, and I don't have text messaging (believe it or not), so I did not sign up. If you have text messaging, and want to try it, I'd say to go for it. In addition to grocery coupons, Cellfire has a variety of non-grocery coupons that the other sites don't offer. I have no idea how one gets the coupons off the cell phone and actually redeems them. If anyone signs up and is successful in using a cell phone coupon, let me know!
I have to think that with the demise of newspapers all around the country, we will be seeing e-coupons becoming more popular. At some point, they may even become the defacto method of couponing.
