Target is yet another retailer to make changes to their discount policies this year following recent changes from Amazon on their refund policy and Walmart, who ended their in-store ad matching program. These changes are slated to take place in late July.
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Shoppers who has so far enjoyed Target’s lax coupon policy… well it’s coming to an end. Here’s a breakdown of what Target’s updated coupon policy means for you:
Source: NBC News
You can combine Cartwheel, Target (paper or digital) or manufacturer coupon together per one item. What this means, is you can't combine two Cartwheel or manufacturer coupon for one item. Target also limits to 4 identical coupons per household per day.
Previously, even if your coupon (Target or manufacturer in-store coupon) is not recognized in Target’s system, cashiers were able to hit the “K1” button which would allow shoppers the discount even if the register system could not recognize the barcode. No longer friends, no longer. Target has updated their system so cashiers can no longer intervene with coupons not accepted in the system. The new system will only apply discounts in the case of a specific match, if not, your coupon will be handed back to you.
If you frequently use Target store coupons or manufacturer coupons, Target’s old system does not read the entire coupon but only a portion of it. What that means is you were able to apply the discount from that coupon across other products from the same manufacturer rather than the specific item that coupon was meant for. Again, no longer. The updated Target system will read the entire code and only apply for the specific item a particular coupon is meant for.
“We do not give cash back nor do we apply any overages to the remaining items in the transaction if the value of a coupon is greater than the purchase value of the item.”
Target will no longer accept UPC-A coupon barcodes and despite the image description above, there have been fraud cases where people were able to manipulate UPC codes to attach to product in-store for a drastic discount.
Target will now only accept coupons with GS1 bar code which contains many more encoded components making the coupon more difficult to manipulate. While manufacturers have largely ditched UPC-A for GS1 coded coupons, keep an eye out for UPC-A coupons in your midst since Target will no longer allow these discounts in stores.
If you’re an awesome coupon gal or guy who follows the coupon policy in stores, this won’t affect you much. It’s only for the mischievous folks that will find more resistance when attempting to cheat the system at Target. Happy couponing!
Have you ran into any issues using coupons in-stores at Target?
