Winston-Salem, NC, March 30, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Inmar Intelligence, a data-driven technology-enabled services company, today released data from two surveys that each aimed to examine the prevalence of coupon fraud. One survey of 1,000 U.S. adults aimed to find common shopper and retailer behaviors that could lead to coupon fraud. The other, which surveyed 300 U.S. adults who work at CPG companies, identified CPG brands’ perceptions of coupon fraud and how they process it internally. Ultimately, the surveys found that coupon fraud is a major concern for 90 percent of CPG brands, yet consumers are still succeeding at misusing coupons.
Shoppers are participating in behaviors that could result in fraudulent activities. 52 percent of shoppers responded saying they have tried to use an expired coupon and 48 percent of shoppers say they have tried to use a coupon for products that do not apply. Further, 63 percent of shoppers said they try to apply multiple offers when purchasing an item.
Regardless of if the coupon misuse is happening on the shoppers’ side or the retailers’ side, counterfeit coupons and mis-redemptions cost the retail industry $100+ million per year. According to CPG respondents, 64 percent use trade funds to cover deductions of counterfeit coupons (57 percent write it off). But cost goes beyond dollars as 59 percent of CPG respondents spend at least 20 hours per week investigating, processing and accounting for counterfeit coupons.
But, that is beginning to change as major industry players are demanding better accountability from their trading partners. According to Mike Loyson, Brand Director of Value Delivery / Couponing at Procter & Gamble, “Recent industry movements to block counterfeit coupons at point-of-sale are very encouraging. P&G is committed to these efforts as eliminating fraud benefits shoppers, retailers and marketers alike.”
Inmar Intelligence is working to eradicate this major issue within retail as it recently announced its commitment to ending coupon fraud by 2024. To do so, Inmar Intelligence introduced a holistic promotion fraud mitigation platform, which combines its new point of sale (POS)-integrated technology CNFRM (pronounced confirm), artificial intelligence, data science and analytics to prevent, detect and remediate coupon fraud. The solution is accessible for retailers and manufacturers for free.
“Coupon fraud and counterfeiting are issues within retail. We have worked for decades to mitigate this risk for all parties involved,” said John Helmle, EVP & President, FinTech at Inmar Intelligence. “Through insights from our two surveys, the retail industry can better calculate the true cost of coupon counterfeiting and determine ways to eradicate it completely. We are committed to our pledge to end counterfeiting of coupons and have developed the tools to do so within three years. We look forward to the day when the retail industry is not losing millions of dollars to counterfeit activity and can continue to realize the awesome promotional marketing benefits of coupon price promotion.”
For more information about Inmar Intelligence’s holistic promotion fraud solution, please visit https://www.inmar.com/.
About Inmar Intelligence
Commerce Accelerated.™
Inmar Intelligence is a leading data and tech-enabled services company. $120 billion dollars of commerce runs through our market-driven platforms which are propelling digital transformation through unified data and workflows to help leading Fortune 5000 companies, emerging brands and health systems drive innovation.
Throughout our 40-year history, we have served retailers, manufacturers, pharmacies, health systems, government and employers as their trusted intermediary in helping them redefine success. For more information about Inmar, please follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook, or call (866) 440-6917.
