Retailwire had a lot of interesting comments on their article “CPGmatters: How are illegal “coupon trains” hurting CPG brands?”. It seems that some manufactuers and retailers may be concerned about a practice called “Coupon Training”. [Here's how the scheme works: A person posts a "train" on a coupon website, such as Families.com, Mommysaver.com or Hotcouponworld.com. That person is the "conductor" and others sign up as "riders." When the "train" has enough passengers, it "leaves the station." This means the conductor mails a package of coupons to the first rider, then to the second, and so on. Along the way, expired coupons are tossed.]
People are using social networks to trade coupons. As several people who commented on this article noted trading coupons is not new. It has been done for generations. It is just that social networking is now making this practice efficient and nationwide. If you leave off counterfeit, stolen coupons and free coupons, should manufactuers be fighting this trend or should the be working to see how to make these forms of social networks work for them? As one person commented in the article, you already have money being spent to do viral marketing, and people are emailing friends and family coupons to people in their personal social networks.
Could not manufacturers and retailers be using these coupon trains as a distribution channel. If one really takes the time to think about it there are a number of ways that these coupon social networks could be used to the benifit of manufacturers and retailers. The ones that see these ways and develop them will be winners in the long run.
Posted by alexanderkeenan 