A look into the recent changes with Red Plum!

As you may or may not have heard as of June 1st you will see one less insert in your Sunday Papers here in the Tampa Bay Area. 

 

Instead of receiving them in the Sunday Paper Valassis will take over as direct mail. Valassis is already distributing Red Plums to over 70 million people every week. You will now receive it on Tuesdays with Winn Dixie, Save a Lot, and the Flyer Magazine.  

This has already been implicated in other areas noted since 1999. So this is nothing new to them. My friend who lives in the Fort Lauderdale area has been receiving the Red Plum like this for as long as she can remember.

This news is a shock and effects one group of people and that is the ones that coupon. Not only because it puts a hinder on having multiple Red Plums but it also effects them due to them paying for the paper with only 1/2 the coupons that they need in them.  

It may also effect the newspaper sales but it will not effect the stores or the manufactures or Red Plum itself.

BREAKING IT DOWN

 

The News Media is reporting a crack down on fraudulent coupons usage although Red Plum itself has not yet put out a statement.

But the facts and the rumors may also shed some light on this although again they may have had no decision in making this change but may have played a part.

FACT 

There are at least two clipping services that I know of that are based in the effected area. Not to mention the smaller clipping services or sellers on Ebay. Ebay already changed the way that they allow for selling of coupons months back.

RUMOR

It has been rumored that coupons.com reported lately that Tampa Bay was the top area for coupons being printed on their site. 

Which again does not surprise me one bit. Do I think that it has to do with coupon fraud NO I think it has to do with the amount of people who do coupon in the Tampa Bay Area.

FACT

The top coupon sites are mostly located in the Tampa Bay Area Each with 10's of thousands of followers and more being added each day.  Not to say that there members are all local because they do span to toehr areas and states but the areas that they target are more dedicated to this one main area. I can tell you within the last year or so the amount of followers on these sites have more then doubled and growing more and more each day.

FACT

There are also smaller groups designated to certain areas 

(such as this one) with 100 if not 1,000's of members. 

All with different strategies of how to coupon which makes them different. Although each may have it's own method they are all there to show you the ropes in one way or another how to coupon. The groups can be found all over the Tampa Area in counties such as Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas County.

 

RUMOR

Another rumor is that a Walmart located in the Tampa Region turned in over 23,000 coupons and was not reimbursed for 1 of them. Though one of the coupons mentioned that caused this was the Almay Coupon which is not put out by Red Plum but put out by Smart Source. 

Now with this being in my opinion the Tampa Bay area is more than likely the top area for couponers. Whether it is your normal working mother or your extreme couponer who dedicates every waking moment to getting in on the deals. You can walk into any Publix in the area and see people walking around the store with coupon binders and this is not nothing new since this area has been seeing the cleared shelves for months. 

WHO IS TO BLAME?

 Although many people are pointing fingers saying that the people selling the items are to blame. The people who buy 20 papers each week are to blame. The person who clears shelves are to blame. 

If this group did not start then this would not of happened. It is his fault, her fault, their fault, and my fault. 

I know in my situation I was helping groups and sites already and saw a need for help in my area so I started the Facebook group and it just kept growing with people wanting to learn how to coupon and now I have 3,000 members and get an average of 25 new request each day. My web site has over 135,000 views and no matter what changes the game I will still be here helping people to coupon. 

The above facts and rumors and your thoughts or opinions or mine may or may not have caused these changes but as first stated this is not nothing new and Red Plum has been switching to direct mailing for years in areas.. maybe it was just our time. 

SO NOW WHAT DO YOU DO?

As with anything that changes in your life you learn to adapt to it and find another way to get your hands on extra inserts. Your a couponer and it is time to be resourceful and use your connections or your brains to just get your hands on some more. Ask family, friends, co workers or neighbors to save them for you or find a coupon insert site that deals with buying full inserts. 

It is not the end of the world. 

HAPPY COUPONING!