Heavy Digital Coupon Shoppers Outspend Average Consumers Annually

Consumers turn to digital coupons for savings, but are businesses actually encouraging more spending through these incentives?

That’s just one of the interesting questions asked by a new release from market research agency GfK that sought to determine how often digital coupon shoppers shop, how much they spend and what types of shopping trips they make most frequently.

In total, GfK’s research analyzed more than 100 campaigns from Coupons.com over a 52-week period, and looked at the purchasing habits of what it estimates are more than 2 million unique households.

We bring you some of the study’s major findings in this PYMNTS.com Data Point.

Digital Coupon Shoppers Spend More, Shop More Often

According to GfK’s data, the average shopper makes around 65 trips annually, or about 1.25 trips per week. By comparison, digital coupon shoppers are a noticeably more active demographic, making 81 trips every year or about 1.56 trips every seven days.

This group not only goes to the store more, they spend more when they’re there – on average about $6.13 more each trip. All totaled, the research says 13 percent more dollars are spent by digital coupon shoppers when compared to the rest of the American consumer population.

The report also broke down spending by subcategory, reviewing 49 in total, including baby care, beverage, food, health care, household care, personal care and pet care. And in some categories, digital shoppers proved to be a far more lucrative market.

In particular, digital coupon shoppers were found to spend 42 percent more than the average shopper on groceries.

There’s Even More To Gain From Heavy Digital Coupon Shoppers

Despite the clear differences between the average shopper and digital coupon users, those in the latter category could also be divided further. GfK tracked the average movements of heavy digital coupon shoppers to illustrate this point.

Members of this group made about 88 shopping trips every year, the study says, spending more than $70 per trip. This means that the average annual spending of these individuals is on average about $3,000 greater than that of average consumers.

Are These Habits Likely To Become A Trend?

GfK also broke down its data from 2012 and compared it to statistics from 2011. Perhaps not surprisingly, due to a variety of economic factors, the study found that the average shopper spent about $60 less in 2012. However, what’s important to note is that digital coupon shoppers buck this trend.

For instance, while they spent about $4 less per trip in 2012, the average digital coupon shopper spent $200 more during this calendar year. Similarly, heavy digital coupon shoppers spent $380 more on average.

While daily deals and coupons haven’t quite infiltrated average American shopping habits, the report shows that shoppers who do take advantage of these deals may be a lucrative market for businesses to pursue into the future.

Read the full report here.