Due to spoilage constraints, it's never truly been possible for the average consumer to purchase perishable items in bulk, regardless of volume discounts or the size of one's bank account.
Even if a shopper altogether ignored spoilage and purchased a large amount of perishables, traditional bulk transactions provided stores with no guarantee that a particular buyer would ever return for more.
At StableCoupons, however, the recent launch of its pioneering e-voucher technology has begun to turn conventional wisdom on its head. To re-engineer bulk purchasing from the ground up, the company started helping retailers issue vouchers for bulk purchases instead of requiring customers to take full possession of their items at the point of sale.
With these systems in place, a customer might even purchase vouchers worth hundreds or thousands of items, keeping spoilage at bay by redeeming his or her vouchers over the course of an entire year.
The gradual redemption of these vouchers also means that bulk purchasing can now function as a new category of retail loyalty, since shoppers often buy additional items on each repeat visit rather than solely the voucher item.
Moreover, the prepayment for goods obtained at a later date serves to create an attractive interest-free financing tool for grocers. In the time between payment for bulk vouchers and their eventual redemption, stores are able to use their earnings in any way they see fit, from store expansion to hiring and more.
StableCoupons believes that its bulk purchasing innovations not only reduce financial waste but reduce physical waste as well.
"Many shoppers buy more than they can conceivably use in order to qualify for bulk discounts," said StableCoupons CEO, Ken Chester. "With our technology, however, shoppers can buy at even higher levels and obtain even larger discounts, all while not contributing to food waste and environmental degredation."
StableCoupons enables consumer bulk buying of even the most perishable grocery items through a waste-reducing electronic voucher system. To overcome spoilage limitations, bulk buyers receive e-vouchers that are exchangeable for the physical items they've purchased instead of forcing the buyer to take full possession of a large bulk purchase all at once. Vouchers are then redeemed on an as-needed basis, allowing stores to receive prepaid revenue while customers achieve volume discounts without waste.