14 Oct

Written by Kathryn Vercillo on October 14, 2009

A small city in the United States might have a smart idea about how to boost their local economy. The government officials in this city are issuing coupons to people who choose to shop in the area. Shoppers need to prove that they have spent a certain amount of money in local stores during the day. Once they do that, they can apply to get coupons to get reduced costs on other items that they might want to buy. With the popularity of coupons definitely on the rise, this could be an interesting way to stimulate the local economy. But will it work?

The Chamber of Commerce in Plano, Texas could be on the cutting edge of methods of improving the local economy by using coupon deals to entice shoppers to spend their money in Plano’s stores. People who spend at least $50 in local stores in one day are rewarded for their contributions to the local economy with a coupon book. They can then use these coupons to get better deals on additional shopping in the area. Not only does this encourage shoppers to spend at least $50 to get the good deals but the deals themselves also encourage additional local sales. With holiday spending about to begin, this could be a great way to make sure that customers do their shopping locally.

You have to ask yourself if this plan is really going to work, though. Are people going to go through the trouble of doing $50 worth of shopping and then submitting their receipts for review just to qualify for coupons to do more shopping? When you can easily go online and get coupon codes to reduce the cost of any shopping that you might want to do, why would you want to go through all of this extra hassle? The city hopes that the campaign will work since it’s lost a lot of revenue as a result of the recession but only time will tell whether or not this type of coupon scheme does local governments any good.

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One Comment

  1. 1

    Kasey at Thrifty Little Blog
    October 14th, 2009

    This is such a great idea! I hope it catches on with other cities.

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About the authors

Kathryn

We are Kathryn and Captain Frugal two money saving fanatics. Kathryn is a freelance writer living in San Francisco which means that she's had to work hard to maintain a frugal budget. Captain Frugal learned from a young age that a penny saved is a penny earned, he's made it his life's mission to beat "the system" a few cents at a time. "Living the high life is easy!" say's captian frugal, "all you need is a little creativity, to improve your lifestyle and still save money!

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