Shopper's Food Warehouse Coupon Policy, including Internet Printable Coupon Policies

I know that we have talked about Shopper's Food Warehouse's Internet Coupon Acceptance Policy before in a comment thread on a previous Shopper's post, but since we had received a reader comment this weekend with feedback on her unfavorable Shopper's experience, we thought we would document at length what Shopper's Food Warehouse says is its policy vs. what we have experienced in real life.

Shopper's Food Warehouse's stated corporate policy is that it does not accept any Internet coupons valued at $1 or more. Of course, I did not know this for several months, as in August through November 2008's coupon doubling/tripling sessions, I redeemed several $1-valued Internet coupons (and other lower valued Internet printed coupons) in a series of Shopper's transactions.

Come December 2008, however, I had the very embarrassing and frustrating experience of having half a shopping carts' worth of groceries' and other items' Internet printable coupons turned away! At first, the cashier politely told me that she could not accept the $1 coupon (and in all fairness, this matched the corporate policy that I later read). When she called the manager over because I expressed confusion since I had used $1 Internet printable coupons in the past, he told me that they would not accept any Internet-printed coupons, period. Argh! After I told him that I had redeemed several Internet coupons there in the past months with no issues, he replied that due to Internet coupon fraud they had not accepted Internet coupons in years, and that my prior transactions' Internet coupons should not have been allowed, and even said that such discounts would have been taken from the pay of the cashiers who had checked me out (what?).

Both the manager and the cashier were very gracious, but it was so stressful - after doing painless Shopper's transactions with Internet coupons for months - only to have hours of printing and organizing selected coupons and shopping for Internet coupon items wasted for the sake of an inconsistently-enforced policy.

Of course, I came home and did what I thought best for the sake of my own future planning: I wrote to Shopper's Food Warehouse via their website comments form. I received a reply in short order - to my delight - but it was a boilerplate coupon policy response that has been posted in many a coupon forum (to my chagrin). Nevertheless, it's something.

I pasted the email's contents below at the bottom of this post so that all of our fellow Shopper's coupon shoppers might have a basis for their shopping. If your Shopper's Food Warehouse Internet coupon experience was inconsistent with corporate policy, we encourage you to contact Shopper's Food Warehouse and tell them about it! Yes, you may very well get the same template response that we've seen, but it still means that more disenfranchised customers will be communicating their frustrations, which may lead to more consistent policy application across all stores. Oh - and can we recommend that you close with a line along these lines?
"I will be saving my Internet-coupon-related purchases for other retailers (such as Bloom, Giant, CVS, and Safeway) who have gladly accepted such coupons in the past without question."

The whole dynamic seems so smoke-and-mirrors, which is why we don't go out of our way to match Internet printable coupons in our Shopper's Food Warehouse matchups shopping lists. In fact, we never bring Internet coupons with us to Shopper's anymore as it's just not worth the sweaty-palms stress of, "Will-they-won't-they?". With all of the Sunday insert coupons out there, there are plenty of Sunday insert coupon matchups worth investigating every time Shopper's multiplies coupons - as you can see from two trips, trip #1 here, and trip #2 here, a weekend in which I paid $26.89 to Shopper's Food Warehouse for $168.79 worth of stuff - no Internet coupons needed.

Nevertheless, it's true that if all stores uniformly accepted under-$1 coupons consistent with regularly-stated corporate Internet coupon policy, this would lead us to do coupon matchups and shop for those products whose coupons are available online (whereas we likely wouldn't otherwise). In other words, once all Shopper's Food Warehouse locations start complying with the corporate "All Internet Coupons under $1 accepted" policy, we'll start posting "under-$1 Internet coupons" matchups - and buying these products by the cartful - as we're guessing our readers would also do. :)

We know of the following Shopper's Food Warehouse Internet printable coupon acceptance/rejection experiences:

• Chantilly, VA - Heard reports of refusing all Internet printable coupons, or accepting all Internet printable coupons, depending on your cashier. Yeesh!
• Eldersburg, MD - Accepts at least under-$1 Internet printable coupons
  
• Kinsgstowne, VA - Refuses over $1 Internet printable coupons
• Lorton, VA - Refuses all Internet printable coupons
  
• Oxon Hill, MD - Refuses all Internet printable coupons
  
• Rolling Valley, VA - Gina has successfully redeemed Internet printable coupons here, but one of us has had all Internet printable coupons refused at this location. 'Argh' again with the consistency.
  
• Stafford, VA - Refuses all Internet printed coupons
  

Incidentally, we are not aware of Giant rejecting $1+ Internet printable coupons, so if you really want to double them, try them at Giant.

What have your Shopper's Food Warehouse Internet printable coupon experiences been? Is your SFW consistent with the corporate policy of "All Internet coupons (except FREE item Internet coupons) under $1 accepted"? Or does your store reject all Internet coupons? OR (happy day), does your SFW accept all Internet coupons? We will add your experiences to this list above to help other readers who are hoping to try out under-$1 Internet printable coupons - so leave a comment with your experience!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: SFW Customer Service <SFW.CustomerService@supervalu.com>
Date: Fri, Dec 19, 2008
Subject: Customer Complaints

Dear --------,

I am glad to have had the opportunity to reply to your e-mail. Due to an increased number of fraudulent Internet coupons in the marketplace, Shoppers Food & Pharmacy no longer accepts Internet coupons for FREE items. At this time we are still accepting Internet coupons for CENTS OFF up to $1.00. I have forwarded your comments to the store manager and all parties involved. If for some reason your question has not been answered to your satisfaction please feel free to contact customer service. We hope you will continue to shop with us for many years and appreciate your business.

Sincerely,

Marshell Washington

Marshell Washington | Customer Care

Shoppers Food & Pharmacy |

www.shoppersfood.com

Low prices are only the beginning.