Does anyone still clip the coupon? Consumers want deals, but how are they looking for them

For some, this is a ritual – sitting with those week flying and clipping the coupon for the best deals.

For others, this is a lifestyle. Coupon Recorded Dictionary In the 1950s, and then came Extreme couponPopular 2010 US television shows that lasted for four sessions.

And for many people, this is a requirement. Most Canadians are actively looking for ways to save the cost of food, including using more coupons, according to A Report from 2024 Agri-Food Analytics Lab At Dalhousie University in Halifax.

But shows as a wave of report Decline In the coupon distribution and redemption, and the increasing use of AI To hunt dealsCoupon in danger of becoming one Lost art,

Coupon landscape changes

“I think it’s changing the type of coupon,” said Kathleen Cassidi, which runs a popular social media coupon account Stay on a loni,

Cassidi, who lives in Toronto, regularly posted deals and coupon tips for hundreds of his thousands of followers on social media.

Cassidi told CBC News, “We are looking at a lot of coupons entering the digital field. It is more than cash-back apps, digital coupons, loyalty points.”

Nevertheless, the use of coupons, both physical and digital, has been declining in the US since the 1990s and according to A, between 2006 and 2019, it fell more than 50 percent. New study in political economy journalAccording to data compiled by Marketing and Commercial-Printing Services Company RRD, US Marketlers distributed just 50 billion coupons in 2024 compared to 330 billion in 2010. For Wall Street Journal,

Meanwhile, traffic AI AI for US Retail websites jumped 1,200 percent in February compared to six months ago in February, according to A. March report from AdobeWhile Adobe said that traffic was “modest” than other channels such as the discovered discovery or email, its growth is notable – twice as much as every two months since September 2024. “

The company also surveyed 5,000 American consumers for its report, and AI found 39 percent for online shopping. Of them, 43 percent said that they used AI to search for deals.

Coupon development

The coupons returned to at least 1887, when Coca-Cola began to distribute them as a way to promote the profile of the drink, according to it The history channelAccording to a report by Snip, they have developed with in-store redemption from clipping these traditional newspapers, A promotion technology company,

The 1990s saw digital discount code, email promotion and rise of printable coupons, reports, and Kovid -19 epidemic caused the digital coupon to cross the physical people. However, the problem is that the landscape for digital deals is currently “congested”, according to the report.

And that’s why consumers can be Using AI fast To cut through noise, Tripate Gill said, Waterloo, an associate Economics Professor at Waterloo, ONTS at the University of Waterloo, Onts.

Gill said that using AI reduces the “search cost”, or people searching products and efforts.

AI services are marketed as incredibly intelligent and competent, so it makes sense to consumers to try to find a discount, said a subsidiary computing science professor Matthew Guzdial at the University of Alberta.

But there is a problem, experts agree: “Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work,” said Gujadial.

‘Life-changing shopping hack’

Tiktok General Z is full of consumers, how AI has helped them save money by sharing, hunting the coupon code and the best deals, Budget assistance,

“My life -changing shopping hack was when I saw a girl on my (for the page for you) that she used chat for discount code,” Ticketkokar wrote with a video in May,

AI can provide a prudent way for consumers to look for cost-saving tips, say Gujadial, but models are often incorrect. He said that coupons change regularly, and at this point the AI ​​model does not have the ability to verify whether the code found in their training data months or years ago is still valid, he said.

In most cases, a chatbot also cannot find the web as a north part, Guzdial said.

Gill says that when it comes to shopping research, how helpful AI can be depends on how narrow and concentrated in your signal.

For example, Gill says he recently asked Shopping GPT (A feature within CHATGPT) To help find a digital camera for your teenage daughter, the price is less than $ 100. It provided them with three links, two of which inspired him for products that did not even have cameras.

But he asked, “Find me a pink digital camera for a teenage girl for less than $ 100 from Amazon,” the results would be more reliable, he said.

Can AI hunt deals?

As an informal trial, CBC News asked the chip whether this Old Navy could find a discount code for Canada. It quickly drawn a code for a discount of 20 percent.

However, when the CBC tried to implement the code, it “invalidated or finished or finished.” The same thing happened with the next three codes, as well as the coupont, with the code provided by the AI-operated coupon finding tool.

Subsequently, CBC asked Chatgpt if it could get a discount for a slow cooker. This suggested a 50 percent discount to Shefman Stainless Steel Slow Cooker from the giant tiger. But the CBC could not detect that deal, or even that slow cooker, but also Vishal tiger websiteOn close inspection, the link chatrap was quoted as a reference. Entering on smart canxy blog,

Cassidi, which affects the Toronto coupon, says he has not tried to find deals. But she is not looking through paper flying, either. She uses the Flipp app to view through digital flyers every week, which she cross-references with various cash-back apps and digital coupons.

“You used to see a lot of physical coupons … whether they were in flying or shops on inserts or products,” Cassidi said.

“There are still physical coupons, but perhaps there are many not available.”