Walgreens policy discussion

I just got off the phone with someone at the Walgreens corporate office. Just to give you a background of what is going on, yesterday I tried to buy the glade candle that was on sale for $5.99 and use the $4 off printable coupon and the $2 off Easy Saver store coupon. They wouldn't let me because the candle was more than the two coupons together, by one penny, and they said they couldn't price adjust the coupon. Well this has happened before, and this particular store has some creative couponing practices sometimes, so I kindly asked if I could speak to a manager, and was told the same thing that his boss told them they couldn't do that anymore, it was a new policy. I said that's fine- obviously you can't do anything about it and I would call the corporate office to make sure the policy was in fact changed or just an interpretation by that particular store. (I actually called regarding the exact same price adjusting issue at that store one month before, and corporate told me that they did in fact price adjust coupons to match the value of the item, and they would retrain the store. So I thought the manager was enforcing his own coupon practices again.)

So as I talked to Walgreens again today, they said they were in the process of changing their policy- and they would no longer price adjust coupons. If your store allows you to do this right now, lucky you- but it will be changing in the coming days.

I don't quite understand why they would do this, as the store gets reimbursed the full value of the coupon, and so they make more money by accepting price adjusted coupons. For example if an item costs $1, but you have a $2 coupon, they price adjust the coupon down to $1, but the store gets reimbursed by the manufacturer the full $2 and .08 extra to process it. So if you would have paid for that item with cash they would get $1. But since you paid with that coupon they get $2.08- it seems like a no brainer business practice.

I also am having a hard time with Walgreens telling the managers about the coupon price adjusting change, but not the customer. They said they don't have an official policy yet, so they haven't come out with a statement, but it doesn't seem like a good customer oriented business practice to change something so drastically and have your customers find out it about blindly. Walgreens is a good to great comapny, and they do have some great business practices, but I hope to understand these issues more and why the company would make these choices. I'm still going to shop at Walgreens, but it is unfortunate they will lose some of my business now that they won't price adjust coupons.