CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Millions of consumers regularly use product redemption coupon and realize substantial saving.
In Marketing, a coupon is ticket or document that can be exchanged for am financial discount or rebate when purchasing a product.
Customarily, coupons are issued by Manufacturers of consumers of packaged goods or by retailers to be used in retail stores as a part of sales promotion. They are often widely distributed through mail, coupon envelopes, magazines, Newspapers, the Internet (social media, email, and newsletter) directly from the retailer and mobile devices such as phones. Since only price conscious consumer are likely to spend the time to claim the savings , coupon functions as a form of price discrimination enabling retailers to offer a lower price only to those consumers who would otherwise go elsewhere.
In addition, coupons can be also be targeted selectively to regional markets in which price competition is great. Some consumer tend not to keep for future use but will review coupon available just prior to shopping to see if any of them cover product they plan to buy or if there is any for new improve product of interest.
But new invention relates to the digitalized or electronic generation and distribution of secure money saving or discount coupons in particular to use the centrally located online computer system for distributing such coupon to remotely connected consumer computer and for collecting user specific data regarding coupon usage and demographic information from the remote computer.
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
Discount coupons have long been distributed by manufacturer to market their product and retail store to attract customer to their particular store in order to buy their product.
For decades advertisers have issued or published printed coupon which can be taken to redemption center for some value or as a discount towards the purchase of some item. With this method has proved to be effective, there are many processes involved for the user, the redemption Centre or retail store as well as advertise themselves.