For the last year Publix stores in areas of Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee have continued to enjoy double coupons.  Meanwhile all the stores in South Carolina, North Carolina and Florida have not doubled coupons.  It was only a matter of time until the other stores joined the rest of the company…

It has been officially announced that as of December 21st most stores in the remaining states will stop doubling manufacturer coupons.  I know for some of you that this is a shock and makes you immediately want to storm out of the store screaming that you are no longer playing with them.  I was there with you just last year as these changes came to South Carolina stores.

Here’s the official PR answer they are giving regarding these changes:

It’s a very markity message that in all honesty hasn’t changed in over a year.  I’ll be honest with you… there are no extra great savings we’ve seen and no extra BOGO sales.  The digital coupons they mention are all paid for by manufacturer’s so that’s no cost to them.  In general this is a bottom line decision, and it would be great if they would be honest in that too.

In most areas of GA, AL and TN there are no other competitors that double coupons.  This isn’t needed in their minds to attract or keep customers.  So now is a great time to end the extra cost.  There is only one area that this is a stupid idea and I’ve said it from the start… North Carolina folks you should be in other stores!  Almost every store in NC doubles coupons except Publix (Harris Teeter, Lowes Foods, Bi-Lo, and Ingles all double coupons).  Someone didn’t do their homework there.  Everywhere else though this just makes all the stores more of the same.

Before You Only See The Bad

The sky isn’t falling, I promise.  Before you get really upset there are two things to see:

1. Most of the coupons we see are above the 50¢ doubling threshold.  In the past four Publix weekly ads this has only affected 10 or less items in each ad.  The ad that starts this week only has three coupons that would double!  For most shoppers this savings may equate to $5 or less depending on how many items you grabbed and coupons you had.
2. They still have more store coupons than any other competitor.  This is a very important point for your savings.  With all of the Publix store coupons we are allowed to use a manufacturer coupon with them.  This is where the big savings come in on most items.  Think of the great freebies we’ve seen in the past month – free Hellman’s, Popsicles, Ice Cream, and others.  They all were free because of the store coupons!

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