Procter and Gamble: Stealing Marketshare Thru Coupons

As a frugal shopper who's always looking to save money when buying groceries, toiletries, and, well, pretty much anything, I've learned to take notice of when there are good deals going around. And lately I've noticed that Procter & Gamble is loading up on the discounts in recent weeks.

For example, I shop at BJ's Wholesale Club because I like the fact that I can get certain items in large quantities at reasonable prices. Things like cereal, which I eat every day and run thru rather quickly. All in all, it's a good place to go to refill the cupboards once a month or so, since things are cheaper in bulk.

To add to it, BJ's has its own circulars with exclusive coupons on a wide variety of products. Procter & Gamble always has coupons in the circularas, such as $2 off a package of 10 boxes of Puffs tissues, or $3 off Tide laundry detergent. But lately they've been laying the deals on heavy. My guess is that they're trying to build up on market share while the economy is in a dive and consumers are being pinched.

Some examples I've seen from their coupons include:
-Buy one package of 30 rolls of toilet paper, and get a package of four tubes of toothpaste for free... a $7.59 value.
-Buy a large bottle of Tide laundry detergent, get a large bottle of Joy dish detergent for free.
-Buy Bounty paper towels, get Zest soap for free...
Etc., etc.

As you can see, these are pretty substantial offers that they're pumping out, and they all tend to be $7-8 values. I suppose that they're big enough and can handle these discounts for the short term with the goal of trying to scare off other competitors. Seems like a reasonable marketing strategy since consumers are always looking for good deals, and it gets their products in people's homes to try out, even if they've never used them before. When the economy improves, my hunch is that they'll gradually go back to advertising their normal coupons.

But hey, when the economy improves, I think we'll all be much happier to go back to any sort of normalcy.