The author of the article points out that he's not really a "couponer"; he wouldn't bother with the coupons if he had to go through and look through them all. He buys what he wants to buy (decided ahead of time, not through a process of looking at the app), and his daily batch job having added all the coupons and possibly getting him a discount on the stuff he was already going to buy is just a bonus.

You have a different objective than the author of this article, who says

> I’m not someone that “needs” to get the best deal - if what I’m buying has a coupon then great, but I’m not going to change my purchases based on coupons

The author will buy what the author will buy, and he may happen to get a discount if any coupons apply.

This is more for someone who buys what they always buy(or whatever they feel like in each instance), but doesnt want to miss out on the deal just because they didnt click the coupon.

One of the other benefits he mentions is that sometimes Safeway offers coupons like "Buy $20 worth of groceries, Get $2". Unless you look for and add that coupon, you'd miss out on it, with the script, it's always activated.

I also use the Safeway app, which I think is one of the better apps out there, but sometimes they add in a coupon for something free. Unless I'm looking for that, I might miss it. I'd like to modify the script to look for and notify me when it finds them.

Coupons have two purposes, which seem contrary, but are essential to understand how coupons are a form of advertising:

1) Saves you money (versus the retail price of the item)

2) Makes you more likely to buy the product on the coupon.

Your use of coupons adheres to both value #1 (saves you money, because you know what's on sale) and value #2 (advertises products on sale, increasing your chances of buying them). This is the core advertising model of coupons and why they've been popular forever.

This automated use of coupons saves you money if you happen to purchase an item for which a coupon exists, without requiring you to do any extra work to save that money — but also without having the desired advertising outcome of making you more likely to purchase that item.

This compares well to adblocking. Internet advertising on websites:

1) Saves you money (versus subscribers-only paywalls)

2) Makes you more likely to buy the product on the advertisement

And in that analogy, ad-blockers are directly equivalent to coupon auto-adders: they allow you to save money without having the desired advertising outcome of making you more likely to purchase that item, in a fully-automated manner that doesn't require you to exert any effort doing so.

Coupons are a precursor form of advertising ("pay-per-clip" :) where you are paid money to view the advertisement, and are more likely to commit to buying the product when you 'clip' the coupon — it's a marketing psych thing. They also have perfect tracking, since retailers provide coupons to manufacturers along with purchase date and location.

Coupon autoclippers break that agreement, such that you're 'paid' for being influenced by the advertisement without ever having been influenced. The coupons are no longer valid for tracking the effectiveness of advertising A/B tests in different markets (your Safeway account's zip code is surely part of that data). They are no longer proof that you viewed an ad at all.

You're not wrong that this app would ruin how you shop quickly, but you're also shopping quickly using a list of products that were predetermined by Safeway and/or other marketing divisions to be of maximal interest to them for you to purchase. As long as you're okay with that, coupon clipping is an excellent approach. For others, autoclippers would minimize the price paid without changing their purchasing methods (which may be paper-based, brand-focused, or random-chaotic)

> ("pay-per-clip" :)

You have a well-written and accurate comment, but I'm overwhelmingly distracted by the combination of the adorable "pay-per-clip" and the historied debate about how to handle an emoticon smiley at the end of a parenthetical. (conclusion: you're doing it wrong and are a terrible person!....but, "pay-per-clip"...tee-hee)

Thank you, I do my best :).

> They also have perfect tracking

They have perfect tracking of completed purchases, but have no idea how effective their ad was for the people who didn't buy it. Did they miss the ad entirely because of poor placement? Did they see the ad but not value the deal? Did they clip the coupon but not make it to the store before expiration? Did they clip the coupon but find a better deal in the store? Did they clip the coupon, find the store was out of stock, and not feel like dealing with the store's rain-check process (if any)?

Arguably the tracking isn't perfect for completed purchases, even. They get purchase date and store location, but that's not all that much: online retailers get much more information when someone clicks on a banner ad and then completes the purchase. They can even get some information out of a failed sale, depending on how far the potential customer made it through the process before bailing.

This is a great analogy. I was a little worried in writing this that it might be "ruining" a good thing, and that publishing it would kill it, but I figured enough people over time have tried to take advantage of coupon-ing (and the fact that it's inherently people trying to get deals) that it was ok.

Interesting way to compare this auto script to adblocking.