I had a vent cleaner out at my house yesterday.
As he started to fill out the estimate sheet, the young man asked, "Do you have a coupon?" "No," I said. He seemed sort of perplexed. "There wasn't anything in whatever ad you saw?" "No. I found you guys through HomeAdvisor." Since this was already going to be quite a bit more expensive than I'd hoped, I didn't want to miss out on a discount, so I said, "Let's just pretend that I have a coupon." He seemed relieved. I went on, "After all, you guys are expecting to give the discount, so you aren't losing any money." He didn't seem to get my point, but continued on with the estimate, giving me the coupon discount.
For grocery stores, I understood coupons. The consumer presents coupons for items they bought, which means the store gives you a discount. The grocery store in turn gets reimbursed by the product manufacturer, who is the one that published the coupon, so the grocery store isn't out any money. But when it comes to businesses giving coupons for their own services, it just shows that the regular price is an over-charge, because business couldn't afford to stay in business if they keep giving discounts off a reasonable fee. So, they make their "regular" price unreasonably high, so that the consumer can feel relief that they're getting a discount.
When nobody pays the regular price in the first place, then a discount isn't really a discount. A couple of decades ago, American TV screens were filled with competing long distance telephone commercials. "You get 30% off," they would brag. And I'd wonder, 30% off of WHAT? They would never say what the base price was. Getting 30% off a price that doesn't exist in the first place -- because no one ever pays it -- isn't really a discount. I once was at an auto glass place to help the bookkeeper with Quickbooks. The owner was on the phone with a potential customer, and turning pages in his thick pricing books that had various makes and models of cars. He ran his finger down a column of numbers. "I can give you 27% off the list price," he said, "that'll be $125.00." After he hung up, I asked, "Do you ever charge anyone the list price?" "No," he replied. "The list price exists just so I can tell them I'm charging them less than the list price so they feel like they're getting a deal."
I used to look for coupons for my favorite pizza outlet. Then, once when I called and gave my order, the guy asked, "Do you have any coupons?" "No," I replied in a pitiful voice. He cheerfully said, "I've got one here that will give you two dollars off." I then realized that it didn't matter if I actually had a coupon in my possession, especially since the delivery person never asked to see it. So, ever since, when the pizza place gives me my total, I say, "Do you have any coupons for that?" They almost always do and the price goes down by a few dollars. Occasionally, I get an apparently new employee who can't "find" a coupon for my particular order and I get charged the full price; they don't understand that the coupon thing is all a mind game.
I had a client who was a massage therapist. She asked me, "How do I show in my books that I gave a few people a free massage, because I was mailing out coupons to advertise my business?" I mulled over that and didn't know the answer, so I asked a CPA that I have a lot of mutual clients with. "You don't record it, if no money changed hands," he said. "You just have the potential benefit of a satisfied customer returning in the future for sessions they pay for." I relayed this to the massage therapist, who wasn't happy with that answer. "But I gave away my time to give free massages; it seems like I should be able to record that expense on my books." I pointed out, "You aren't out any money, because the people with the coupons likely wouldn't have ever come in for your services, anyway. They only knew about you because of the coupon, so you get the advertising benefit." She still wasn't happy with that answer; she felt like she'd given something away and should be able to account for it.
The bottom line is that I've learned if someone asks if you have a coupon, you always say, "Yes." The likelihood that it actually matters to them that you have the coupon in hand is pretty close to zero. Also, if the subject of coupons and discounts never comes up, and someone gives you a price that seems high, it won't cost you anything to simply ask, "Can you give me a discount?"
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