New study shows online coupon usage up 192%

In a recent article I read on Advertising Age, which you can click to here, it was shown that consumers are using coupons at an extraordinary rate. The article stated that, behind jobs, coupons were the second most popular search on the internet. Coupon sites had 28 million unique visitors in February, up 41% from the year before, when they drew 20 million, according to ComScore. In the specific case of coupons.com, they saw a 192% increase in the value of coupons printed from its site in March, compared to the same time last year. The total value of the coupons was a whopping $57 million. While coupons.com deals almost only with household items such as baby products, cold cereals, and other items one might find in a local supermarket, other coupon websites offer discounts on clothing, apparel, and in restaurants as well. There are hundreds if not thousands of other coupon sites on the internet and it would be interesting to see what kind of numbers they are seeing in terms of unique visitors and total dollar value of coupons being printed and redeemed. I am not at all surprised that coupon websites are reporting such great surges in unique site visitors and redeemed coupons. Especially in the current economic climate, consumers are looking to save money whenever and wherever possible and coupon websites are making it very easy by offering savings right at shoppers?