Coupon fever in Hungary: this is how domestic shoppers save with discounts

In the research conducted with more than 1,100 Hungarian shoppers, three-quarters of the participants use coupons at least once a month, and a third take advantage of the available discounts every week. In shopping centers, they primarily purchase drugstore products, such as cosmetics, cleaning products and household supplies, during promotions, but clothing, shoes and food are also among the most popular categories.

The majority of respondents (52%) save over 5,000 forints with each coupon purchase, and every tenth saves more than 10,000 forints. More than half of those who use discounts (57%) use these opportunities more often than in previous years, while a third use them with the same intensity. Three quarters of shoppers do not even bother to redeem a coupon if the discount is less than 10 percent.

Nine out of ten respondents have visited a store specifically for a coupon sale. In such cases, almost everyone (90%) thinks in advance about what they want to buy, but despite this, half of the respondents end up leaving the checkout with more products than they planned. Three quarters of respondents have bought something as a result of discounts that they did not originally need.

The respondents admitted that they particularly enjoy shopping with coupons: eight out of ten consumers experience such occasions as a sense of achievement, and only a fraction (4%) reported that they find these situations stressful. Almost without exception, the survey participants (90%) have postponed a purchase in order to be able to buy the given product at a discount later. A quarter of them wait for weeks in the hope of a lower price, and nine out of ten would be willing to stand in line in front of the store for a special promotion. 

“According to the research results, customers now prefer digital coupons (54%), but there are still a large number of those who choose the paper-based format (46%)”

– highlighted Dóra Vámosi, asset manager at Etele Plaza.

“The survey participants mostly learn about coupon promotions through newsletters, online advertisements and shopping mall websites”

– he added.

Hungarians most often go shopping with coupons alone (35%) or with a partner (32%), but many (23%) see it as a family event. The majority (59%) spend 2-3 hours in a shopping mall, a third of them manage to do it in an hour, but some even spend 4-5 hours shopping at a discount. During the shopping spree, almost half of the shoppers walk more than 2 kilometers.