Strategic Shopping 101

“Strategic shopping is a shopping philosophy/process where a Mom daily, weekly, or monthly (depending upon your shopping style) goes to battle to get the best deal for her family.  The goal is to utilize the system put into place by the Stores and Manufacturers to the benefit of your family.  The point of strategic shopping is to only buy an item when it is at its rock bottom price and to utilize coupons to further reduce this rock bottom price…ultimately your desire is to get the item for free (paying only the taxes).  And to take advantage of any rebates or rewards programs offered associated with the purchase” 

As you read this some of you may disagree with the statement above.  Let me explain my reasoning.

1.        Each individual store developed their respective coupon and discount processes.  Utilizing these processes to the benefit of your family is not doing wrong it is just being a good steward of the money that you have available to spend.  Please note that you will most likely run into either a Manager or a Clerk that will give you a negative attitude (more about this on a later post) about you utilizing their own programs to your advantage.  This is because this type of Manager or Clerk think of the program as a marketing tool… the customer is not supposed to actually use it to their advantage.

2.       Each individual manufacturer creates it’s coupon program.  When you decide to utilize their program is not doing something wrong…it is just once again being a good steward.  The manufacturers see coupon programs as a marketing tool to gain much needed customer data and to increase profit.

3.       Unless you are super wealthy… you have a limited amount of money to spend.  And these days, the prices seem to be increasing exponentially.  So utilizing the store systems and the manufacturers programs to purchase items at their “rock bottom” price utilizing the best coupon deal available will enable you to purchase more items with the limited amount you have to spend.

4.       The reason I use the word battle is because in this case you have to be a General…planning, preparing, intelligence gathering, and implementing your shopping plan always with the eye for taking advantage of any “unknown” deals or specials that you may come upon while you are on the battlefield.

Strategic Shopping 101 #2  How to begin strategic shopping?
Strategic Shopping 101 #3 Information needed to shop strategically.
Strategic Shopping 101 #4 How to shop strategically?
Strategic Shopping 101 #5 Why shop strategically?