"Cash value" of coupons!

It is rare but people do save them since after a long time they have accumulated some little money. It is good than nothing but in case you have something to do, them they are not worth it. Some people will consider them as time wasting while others will take them just to add to their stock.

Legally, I think that it means that this is the amount that you could sell them for if you chose to. I suppose that if you did manage to save up that number of coupons, the shop would have to honour that amount, but I don't think that a lot of people would be willing to put in the time to save that many of them. They would have to either use a lot of printer ink or buy a lot of newspapers; either way they would spend a lot more money getting hold of the coupons than they could possibly save by selling them to anybody.

I think, legally, that the vendor has to state a value of the coupon on the back of it. Years ago people were able to redeem coupons for cash, but the merchants found that they were losing a LOT of money if the person redeemed the coupon without buying the item the coupon is for. So, to save themselves money they changed the way that coupons were redeemed, the customer could use it only for the purchase of the product that was stated on the coupon. Then, for legal purposes, there was a value stated on the back of the coupon in case there was a problem redeeming the coupon for the product. It is very unlikely that someone would go into a store to attempt to redeem the coupon for cash. After all it will cost more than the value of the coupon to collect enough to earn a penny! Also, I am sure that the other reason for a redemption value is in case of the store not having any of the product on hand. This was prior to the issuance of rain checks and the owner of the store could offer the customer money in exchange for the grief of trying to get the customer the item that the coupon is for. Of course it was also back when the country had coin denominations smaller than a penny. Finally, it also encourages the customer to spend the money for the product that the coupon is for. After all which would you rather have? Let's say the coupon is for sodas. The face value is $2.50 off a 12 pack of sodas and the cash redemption value is 1/20th of a cent. Which are you going to go for??? Oh, and the 1/20th of a cent is more than likely the value of printing the coupon in the first place. So, to save the company money on printing the coupons they are willing to pay out the 1/20th of a penny rather than having to pay for getting them reprinted. At least that is what I think the whole thing means.

Good question. I have wondered about that too...and thought of doing it while back, but at the time had other things to do so never got into it. But I am wondering if the store the redeems them to the manufacture...maybe they get the stated cash value of the coupon plus that 1/20th per coupon as a "redemption" reward or something. I would think that stores would have to get something from the manufacture for going through all the trouble of dealing with and redeeming the coupons for the manufacture. INteresting to hear an answer to this!