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Smart Shopping and Cash Refund Offer Subversion: Université de Lille II
Smart Shopping and Cash Refund Offer Subversion: Université de Lille II
Philippe Odou
Université de Lille II
Souad Djelassi
Université de Lille II
Bertrand Belvaux
Université de Paris II
P. ODOU1
Assistant professor of Marketing at the Université de Lille II and affiliated researcher at Lille
School of Management Research Center: 1 Place Déliot – BP 381 59020 Lille Cedex France
tel : 00 33 3 20 90 77 02; e-mail: philippe.odou@univ-lille2.fr.
S. DJELASSI
Assistant professor of Marketing at the Université de Lille II and affiliated researcher at Lille
School of Management Research Center: 1 Place Déliot – BP 381 59020 Lille Cedex France
tel : 00 33 3 20 90 77 02; e-mail souad.djelassi@univ-lille2.fr
B. BELVAUX
Assistant professor of Marketing at the Université de Paris II and affiliated researcher at
LAGERPA; e-mail bbelvaux@yahoo.fr.
1
Corresponding author
1
Smart shopping and cash refund offer subversion
Abstract:
The main objective of our research is to explore a particular group of smart shoppers: those
who use the refund offer actively. Semi directive interviews were conducted with 17
method, shows other motivational urges than economic benefits. This activity is more
comparable to leisure, rich in experience, in social interaction but also in the assertion of
one’s self. Cash Refund Offers activity is lived by these individuals as an active and
Key Words: Cash Refund Offers, Smart Shopper, Consumer Culture Theory, Consumers’
coalition.
2
For the last few years, the search for real bargains has become a full-fledged mode of
consumption. The development of low-cost offers, discount retailers and private offers on the
Internet testifies to the growing interest of consumers for this type of commercial
proposition. Moreover, the rise in the role of the Internet as a source of information leads the
interesting to study this current phenomenon, to understand the meaning the consumer gives
hunters, those called the CRO consumers in this research, defined as consumers taking
systematically advantage of Cash Refund Offers (CRO), and finally considering these people
as a part of a more general category that Mano and Elliott (1997) defined as "smart
shoppers".
Companies propose consumers various offers consisting in the partial, or total, refund
of their purchase. These special deals aim at reducing the perceived risk and thus increasing
the chance for the product to be bought, with the hope that the consumer will continue to buy
it after the disappearance of the offer. However, there can be a gap between expected
consumers behavior and reality when those consumers are trying to divert these offers from
their initial objective. For example, opportunist customers may pounce on CRO offers at the
very start of the operation, quickly leaving a totally desolate and empty store shelve. To
counter such behavior, companies reinforce certain refund conditions (shorter times, text
giving the reasons for dissatisfaction, etc.). Despite such practices, the phenomenon is far
from being checked. Many consumers get organized using the Internet as a means of
disseminating information, by, for example, exchanging tips on Cash Refund Offers.
3
From this observation, the global aim of this research is to better understand this
specific mode of consumption and determine its main motivation. Another dimension,
share their resources and get organized thanks to the Internet in order to achieve their
consumption goals. In the first section, we will review the “smart shopping” literature. Then,
we will devote the second part to our qualitative study. Throughout the presentation of the
results, we will refer to the "Consumer Culture Theory” (Arnould and Thompson 2005;
Arnould 2005). Being interested in the socio-cultural, symbolic and ideological aspects of
consumption, this theory will enable us to clarify "smart shoppers’" behavior. We will
Mano and Elliott (1997) define "smart shopping" as "the tendency to invest
considerable time and effort in seeking and utilizing promotion-related information in order
to achieve price saving”. Nevertheless, price saving doesn’t seem to be the only explanatory
factor of the "smart shopping" tendency. Indeed, this definition disregards an important
aspect of "smart shopping": its hedonic side. Smart shopping is a behavior quite different
from utilitarian and even hedonic shopping, in a sense that these two aspects coexist
The utilitarian aspect includes the value of the money spent compared to planned
purchases (Mano and Elliott 1997; Schindler 1989), the utility of the products bought thanks
to the saving and finally the use of price as an indicator of product quality (Schindler 1989).
Smart shopping and utilitarian shopping have in common an effective use of resources
increasing the economic utility of the purchase. However, contrary to the utility shopper, who
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considers shopping as a chore, work to be done (Stone 1954), the smart shopper invests time
and energy in the purchase activity. He can find pleasure carrying out this task, which is
something he shares with the hedonic shopper. Nevertheless, hedonic shoppers seek above all
pleasure without taking into account price, whereas smart shoppers find their pleasure in the
The hedonic aspect refers to emotions and pleasure resulting from shopping
(Hirschman and Holbrook 1982). In this case, the hedonic benefit, stemming from obtaining
a good bargain, is linked with the self-concept and the feeling of achievement (Schindler
1989). Consumers paying a low price for a product and thus realizing savings, feel proud,
competent, clever and even victorious. Shimp and Kavas (1984), Babakus et al. (1988), Price
et al. (1988), highlight that the pride in being a smart shopper is a considerable motivation to
respond to promotional offers. It has been shown that this feeling exerts an influence more
important than the price saving on the promotional coupons used (Babakus et al. 1988).
According to Mano and Elliott (1997), Schindler (1989; 1998), utilitarian and hedonic
benefits as well as purchase satisfaction, are accentuated when these consumers feel
According to the smart shopping literature, this behavior can have three types of
consequences:
et al. 1988; Mano and Elliott 1997). Smart shoppers are well informed on products and
brands (Price et al. 1988), they know when a product is the object of a promotion, and in
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which store (Price et al. 1988; Mano and Elliott 1997) and often note scheduled promotion
dates (Mano and Elliott 1997). They also show greater cognitive skills in the price evaluation
Smart shoppers engage in an intensive search for promotions inside or outside the
store. Inside, smart shoppers don’t hesitate to ask sales clerks for price information, try to
locate promotions and engage more than other consumers in price negotiations. Outside the
shop, smart shoppers are very fond of advertising (Price et al. 1988; Mano and Elliott 1997),
read many consumers magazines and wander around the stores (Mano and Elliott 1997).
Moreover, these consumers proceed carefully, approach the buying process rigorously,
preparing a shopping list, budgeting purchases and checking products availability and prices
important source of information (Price et al. 1988). Indeed, he can initiate discussions over
shopping, share his experiences, provide information over products, prices, stores, etc....
Previous research explained the consequences of smart shopping for many aspects of
consumer behavior. Nevertheless, there is no clear explanation as to why these people engage
in such a time-consuming activity. The focal point of this research is not to better understand
the behavior of this type of “smart shopper”, but rather to determine the meaning of such
behavior for themselves, their family and more generally, the meaning of this kind of
consumption within today’s consumer society. In order to achieve this goal, we propose to
6
METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS
17 Individual interviews were carried out. People with at least a four years’
experience of cash refund offers were selected. These people were recruited using an
advertisement posted on an Internet site specializing in cash refund offer information. The
sample is rather heterogeneous: 12 women and 5 men, from 26 to 72 year’s old, living in
France. The interviews, one and a half hours long, were carried out via a web messenger.
This specific interviewing mode gives us the opportunity to increase geographical diversity.
The objective of this research is not to identify variables likely to explain the
particular behavior of the CRO hunter, but rather to focus on the meaning which the latter
invests in such behavior. For this reason, we are initially interested in the way these
consumers talk about themselves through their various experiences, how they interpret their
own behavior (Thompson 1997). We thus locate our research within an interpretative
consumers, the meaning they give to this experience and finally the interpretation of the
The interpretation carried out in this research is based on three main theoretical
(Arnould and Thompson 2005). At the heart of our work is the idea that consumers seek, by
mobilizing their own resources, to adapt companies’ offers in order to fulfil their personal
agendas. This is why we will try to identify consumer resources in this treasure hunt, as
described by the CRO consumers themselves. Likewise, we will try to better understand
projects towards which all this energy is mobilized. Holt (1995) constitutes our second
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theoretical pillar. In this article, he proposes four categories, or rather four consumption
opportunities relating to the consumed object. These four categories will be used as the basis
for the benefits analysis of this practice. Lastly, since CRO consumers divert special offers,
we will question them about the way they interpret their practice in terms of consumption. Is
Three topics emerge from the interpretive work: first, the way CRO consumers organize
their treasure hunt (special attention was given to temporal and intellectual consumers
resources); second, the benefits resulting from this hunting (using Holt’s four metaphors
framework); and lastly, how these CRO consumers interpret their own behavior, trying to set
To take the most of refunds, CRO consumers have to organize themselves in a rigorous
way before and after the purchase. To do so they must mobilize intellectual resources to
obtain and select information about Cash Refund Offers, buy the products and follow the
guidelines concerning any refund. Various sources of information are used to obtain
However, for the last few years, the Internet appears to be the main source of information:
8
"For 4 years I have consulted the site madstef.com... I connect myself daily to see
CRO consumers want to be efficient and organize themselves to waste as little time as
possible in superstores:
"I walk through the shelves quickly, moreover the product picture allows me to
target it quickly in each shelve" (Vincent), "in the stores, I go to those shelves
most likely to offer Cash Refunds, I take a look, no need to search for hours. I
Like Mano and Elliott (1997) and Price et al. (1988), our results reveal that CRO
«I have a list with the products to look for in store" (Ciorane), "I make my
purchases knowing in which store the product was on sale thanks to the local
Refund request proves to be the most difficult task. They comply with many rules under
penalty of being refused a refund, especially after the hardening of the conditions (a
handwritten request, more reasons for dissatisfaction to find). To confront these new rules,
"I manage all on a key USB" (Martin), "I have my bank account identification
number already printed. Thus after each purchase everything is sent the same
day"(Philippe).
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The task is even more complicated when consumers possess several accounts in order to
increase their profits and avoid being identified by companies. Organization and vigilance in
"I have a book with the offers and 4 columns for the 4 accounts to know if I have
sent the mail" (Ciorane), "I note all my purchases with the various names which I
use so as not to repeat the same offer with the same name" (Martin), "at home I
have by account 150 sheets pre-photocopied with my name, address, and the
words : please refund the postal costs via my bank account details of which you
will find below, when I return the only thing I do is to insert the till receipt as
well as the bar code and that’s all. For myself, I note the bank account number
Once the refund request has been sent, the next stage is the follow-up. To this end, the
"I have an Excel table to follow my requests and my returns. I function with
several accounts and that avoids mixing up my requests "(Jano)," as I buy many
products and they are not all refunded at the same time, I have made a small
Thanks to this meticulous follow-up system, CRO hunters are able to calculate the
refunds accrued since the beginning of the year, the month or the beginning of their activity:
"my files go back to February 2004... 395.31 euros to date since the beginning of
the year "(Athos)," more than 1500 euros each year "(Christophe)," this year I
have already earned 4852 euros... last year I earned 5300euros "(Martin).
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CRO consumers devote much time to the various tasks implied by this activity: offer
identification, product purchase and administrative follow-up. When one asks about the time
devoted to this activity, CRO hunters experience certain difficulties. Their answers remain
vague and evasive. In addition to the economic benefit, all CRO consumers insist on the
experiential benefit, the pleasure this activity affords them. They have a clear tendency to
"I must admit I’ve never counted because only the result matters" (Chantal), "...
If I count the time spent on the Internet, mails, stores, it must be surely more than
This suggests that CRO consumers do not function according to traditional economic
time (Becker 1965) or linear time. Rather, their behavior can be explained by the experiential
time orientation (Dapkus 1985; Hirschman 1987). In addition to the temporal resources, CRO
consumers resort to the Internet which proves to be a useful tool with two main
consequences, first in terms of the time saved, and secondly by the extent to which
achatgratuit.com...). They help consumers to identify offers (Offer, dates, city, store...). They
also give clear information on the sometimes complex refund procedures and give advice on
how to write letters of complaint. For the most part, blogs and forums of these Internet sites
are devoted to information exchanges on Cash Refund Offers. Even if we can talk about a
virtual community emerging around such sites, when one looks at the frequency of visits, it’s
"I take part in forums, I write product criticisms... there is also an exchange of
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CRO consumers’ sites regularly to find Cash Refund Offers, to know what to say
in order to obtain a refund, and also to recommend to others offers I’ve found"
(Martin).
As we can see, there is a significant change in the kind of activity. Cash Refund is no
longer an individual activity. These consumers realize they have everything to gain from
working together, and the Internet enables them to do so. What we have found seems to
suggest that this kind of resources mutualisation should enrich the CCT theory as a third type
The economic benefit appears obvious. Like Shindler (1989), our results confirm an
important aspect of the economic benefit related to the amount of money saved with Cash
Refund offers. It is also obvious, however, that the significance of these profits will depend
on the financial standing of the CRO hunters. For some of our interviewees (3 people), these
"... one of my principal sources... when the money goes on a card, I keep it in
buy food" (Sandrine), "I am very happy. Without this, I would have difficulties to
get over... I have a tight budget, so I’m very careful with money" (Athos).
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"I can thank Coke and Nestle which enable me to buy my kitchen" (Christophe),
"the money thus collected and saved with the reduction vouchers, all put
together, is always used for small pleasures, a meal in a restaurant, small gifts
for the family, etc. I never include this money in the family budget. It’s for "little
pleasures" "(Michele).
The remaining nine interviewees fall between these two positions. The profits achieved
"I put money to one side but I also use a part of these economies to carry out
appliances, clothing)" (Philippe), "it is a way of saving without using the family
budget... 1/3 to buy products and 2/3 saved... auxiliary wages for leisure and
As Arnould and Thompson (2005) and Arnould (2005) suggest, economic resources build
up thanks to CRO contribute to the realization of consumers’ projects. Indeed, consumers use
Cash Refund Offers to carry out their own projects concerning savings, purchasing power
improvement or to have additional income. Some of them even consider this money as a full-
fledged wage, relieving them of the need to work. Cash Refund offers could thus be
considered as operand resources, diverted from initial brand goals, facilitating the
offers generate significant hedonic benefits - a point which our interviewees were keen to
stress.
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Hedonic benefit: Two terms are frequently repeated in the consumers’ comments: play and
treasure hunt. In addition to economic benefits, our research underlines the pleasure these
consumers find in unearthing refund offers. For all of them, it’s not a chore but rather a
game, an entertainment assimilated to a real treasure hunt where one seeks the wonder
product:
"It is a game to go through the shelves and find the refunded product, it is also a
(Athos), "for me, it’s a real game to seek the various offers... I find a kind of
CRO hunters are also proud to consume free products. They don’t loose any
opportunity to express what they are able to achieve with Cash Refund Offers. For them, it’s
"I never pay for my shampoos, my shower gel, my razors, my shaving foams, my
deodorants, I test all the convenience food I can find, pasta, rice, soups, cakes,
milk for some time and I forget some... but I don’t know, when I give my scores,
We concur with Shindler (1989; 1998) who claims that this pride is felt all the more
"I have a particular marital status..., I’m rather glad to find by myself modest
ways to save money such as the CRO" (Athos), "I speak about it to show that I’m
products" (Cecile). Lastly, CRO hunters are delighted with the possibility to
consume, thanks to Cash Refund Offers, new products and quality brands: "That
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makes it possible to consume quality products in a non expensive way" (Martin),
"Some products are of excellent quality or very good to taste or both, when one
cannot usually afford them, that adds an improvement to some extent to our
Here too, CR Offers seem to function as operands resources for the brand, contributing
to the personal identity of the consumer thanks to the pride and the enthusiasm generated.
This pride is all the more accentuated by the feeling of responsibility and merit.
-Social benefit: As we already underlined, the vast majority of CRO consumers take
an active part in forums in order to exchange information, and divulge CRO locations in their
area. For some, the social dimension goes beyond a simple information exchange since this
"I write on the forum" I like-I do not like "to help those who don’t have
imagination or aren’t critical" (Ciorane), "On the site I note when and where I
"We are a small group of people, in the city where I reside, who give each other
(Martin), "I know many people who do that and we telephone each other to give
CRO consumers play a very important part in the word of mouth communication on
the CRO but also on new product launches, trying to convert people:
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Consuming new products, they deliver their opinion over these products to CRO
"I write criticisms on the products" (Ciorane), "I buy it once even 2 or 3 times
while cheating a little bit but at least I will be able to give my opinion on this new
Some CRO hunters go as far as to redistribute to the family and friends a part of the
refunded goods:
"I sometimes give something to the family" (Martin), "I talk around me and I even
help close contacts take advantage of it" (Sandrine), "I often talk around me,
especially when it concerns a rather expensive product that I find it very good. In
fact when I test a new product which I get with a CRO, I talk to my friends about it
Given this, we deduce that the CRO consumer can become an adviser for his circle of
of new products.
CRO hunting and marketing: Since the CRO consumer takes advantage of the
promotional techniques for his own sake, it seemed to us interesting to question him on
marketing practices and consumption in general. The aim was to know if some of them could
give a more political meaning to their actions, to see whether they were engaged in a kind of
resistance to consumer society. All in all, we could not find any attempt to question
marketing or consumer society. On the contrary, our interviewees legitimate practices such as
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"It is a necessity for brands to promote their products" (Martin), "the system uses the
CRO consumers even express a very positive attitude towards brands, praising their
quality:
"I feel myself near to brands. I like to follow their latest innovations. Moreover I
buy famous brands... I also like to receive advertising from these brands
longevity... I love new products, I like testing... I love advertising where one can
see several different products "(Sandrine)," the majority of brands offer quality
products; you just have to test or to taste sub-brand products which most of the
Our analysis highlights the fact that CRO consumers obey “hyper-consumption” logic
(Lipovetsky 2006). They try to take advantage of the possibilities offered by a system which
enables them to increase their purchasing power. It’s a very individualistic way of thinking
which aims at improving their own pleasure, but also that of their family, even if we assume
that this is nothing more than an attempt to win other people’s esteem. CRO consumers can
be considered as active consumers by the way in which they adapt promotional techniques
"We use marketing techniques designed to make us consume and we subvert them
for our own profit" (Ciorane), "it’s necessary to circumvent the system and to
benefit from Cash Refund Offers, reduction vouchers and the Net" (Christophe).
Thus, they are not against the system but can profit from it by seeking all the faults
which will enable them to increase their profit. For many of them, the hedonic element is
related to the treasury hunting but also to the cat and mouse game between sales promotion
17
specialists and CRO consumers. The former unceasingly develop new constraints to decrease
the requests for refunding, whereas the latter are organized in networks to be able to respond
in the most effective possible way. CRO consumers are very lucid with respect to the
"It is as if I was playing a game with these brands... I think that the refunding of
the product does not cost them a lot because many people buy and never take
advantage of the offer" (Martin), "if they manage to survive by giving us a free
product for one bought, this means that the product margin at the beginning is
HUGE" (Sandrine), "the refunding conditions are getting worse and worse... in
order to refund as little as possible... the manager makes the process complicated,
it’s obvious... it’s not a very expensive system of advertising for brands"
(Amandine)
In this game, and like all smart shoppers, (Mano and Elliott 1997; Schindler 1989;
1998), the CRO consumer feels a sense of victory over the brands and a certain pride by
"It is rather brilliant fun to have trapped big brands, it is stupid, but making these
CRO consumers feel smart when they are mastering their consumption. In their
comments, they insist on their active role, their responsibility in the consumption process. In
addition, they address their criticisms to those who are conned by marketing practices:
"People complain a lot but they don’t pay attention to what they buy. The
advertising, it’s all very well but they fill the shopping trolley by themselves,
nobody forces them... We live in a country of persons on benefits. You think I‘m
hard?... I don’t believe in resisting the consumer society, I just respect my desires,
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I’m not a sheep who copies what everybody else does"(Athos)," people buy
anything and everything, even if they can’t afford it, and that annoys me. When
we speak about consumer society, we refer to people who must have the latest
innovation, whatever the price. As for me, I want the latest innovation at price
zero "(Martin)," The French are like cows to be milked. Who will point out to
Carrefour2 that there is a 2 cent error in their price? Nobody - except me,
because thanks to those 2 cents of error, you will have a 3 euros voucher offered
by Carrefour "(Christophe).
CONCLUSION
CRO hunt appears demanding in terms of efforts and the sheer time it demands. To
this end, these consumers mobilize their own intellectual resources to be organized
throughout the various phases of the purchase (offer research, store frequentation, refund
CRO consumers devote much time to this activity but they are not a good at calculating how
they spend their time. The intellectual and temporal resources of the individual are combined
with more collective ones. We noticed that they are organized in a collective way, forming a
network to collaborate and share their resources. These networks can act locally, be focused
on the family or other CRO hunters encountered in the stores, but they can also be national
ones using Internet sites specialized in CRO detection. More usually, they take the majority
modifications, special deals in stores or leaflets are just some of the many different sources of
2
Famous french retailer
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The purpose of this research was to analyze the behavior of a particular category of
"smart shoppers": the CRO hunters. We confirm results from previous research on smart
from theoretical contributions of the "Consumer Culture Theory". By diverting Cash Refund
Offers from their initial objective, these consumers take an active part in their consumption.
This practice enables them to carry out their personal projects in a way that goes beyond the
economic benefit. As this research shows, CRO hunters are not good at calculating the
amount of time they spend in this activity. If for some, this activity is a lucrative alternative
to working, for the majority, it would appear to act rather as leisure where the utilitarian
aspects combine with more hedonistic ones. The benefit analysis inspired by Holt’s work
(1995) allows us to widen the field of investigation. The four metaphors of consumption
(Holt 1995) are pertinent. The activity is lived as a true treasure hunt (experience) but also
enables the consumer to feel different from traditional shoppers, whom he considers as
passive. This consumption generates social interaction inside the family or on Internet
forums (play) and gives the consumer the impression of cleverness, the feeling that he is a
kind of consumption expert (integration not of the object but in the manner of consuming).
Moreover, another underlying question arises: the activism of the consumer. This
study shows how these consumers become active in their consumption using and developing
become more efficient. Several other prospects stem from our research. First of all, it might
be interesting to analyze the role of the Internet in spreading smart shopping behavior. With
the spread of the Internet as a useful bargain-hunting tool, this kind of smart shopping
behavior may generalize across the consumer society, especially with young people trying to
20
make the most of a lowering purchasing power. Another prospect related to the last one is the
development of consumer coalitions through the Internet. This suggests that the Internet may
not be a brand panacea. This useful tool could also have some secondary effect on relations
Muniz and Schau notice in the specific case of the Apple Newton community (2007).
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Appendix 1
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