Apr 15, 2025
San Diego has banned grocery stores from offering only digital coupons after the San Diego City Council voted unanimously in favor of the Grocery Pricing Transparency Ordinance. It’s just one move by states looking to alleviate the financial burden many families are facing at the grocery store.
The ordinance, which still has to return to council for a second reading, is the first of its kind in the U.S. and is aimed at keeping seniors and low-income families from unfairly paying higher prices for groceries.
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Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera led the effort to pass the ordinance after his father, who’s in his 70s, complained about having difficulty accessing digital coupons and said they didn’t always work.
“Simplest policy we’ve ever written,” Elo-Rivera told CBS 8. “If you offer a discount digitally, there must be a way to physically access that discount in the store.”
Digital-only coupons hurt those who can most use the discounts
Elo-Rivera and his colleagues on the council hope the ordinance will help ease some of the inequities that result from the digital divide, where some people don’t have access to mobile technology or the internet because of lack of financial means or technological know-how.
This divide tends to disproportionately affect seniors and those with low incomes. For instance, in the U.S., 90% of all adults own or use a smartphone, but only 76% of those 65 and over own one. And only 79% of those with an annual income of less than $30,000 do, according to Pew Research Center.
Yet another barrier: In San Diego, more than 50,000 San Diego households don’t have internet access, according to Elo-Rivera’s office. And among those that do, there is still frustration with using grocery apps.
“What I found frustrating is not being able to use it, and then the cashier at the counter couldn’t use it, and couldn’t show me how to do it,” Fred Davis, a Serving Seniors volunteer, told CBS 8. “Not only did I not get the discount, but nobody could help me.”
Some argue that the difficulty may be by design. Digital discounts are “a clever ploy by big supermarket chains to get people into the store knowing full well that many of them will wind up paying more than the advertised price,” according to Edgar Dworsky, a consumer advocate and founder of Consumer World.
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Unfortunately, the people most affected by this — seniors on fixed incomes and low-income families — are those who could most use them.
These groups spend a larger percentage of their income on food and are highly dependent on sales and discounts to get by. As more of these discounts become digital-only, it makes budgeting and reducing food costs almost impossible.
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Making digital coupons more accessible
Still, digital coupons are popular and their use is expected to continue growing.
And there has been some pushback against the proposal. “The current proposal would actually reduce access to discounts for San Diegans, not expand it,” members of the California Grocers Association said in a statement to CBS 8, in response to the San Diego ordinance.
“The proposal would make special offerings like loyalty programs — which fairly reward a store’s best customers — unworkable.” The group implored the San Diego council to consider the ramifications of their proposal.
Still, San Diego is not the only jurisdiction looking to create laws that would improve the transparency of grocery pricing. In recent months, lawmakers in New Jersey, Illinois, Rhode Island and Connecticut have been looking at legislation that would require grocery stores offering digital coupons to offer alternatives such as paper coupons.
In the end, legislation may not be required. Some retailers now have in-store kiosks that allow all customers to access coupons and promotions. So if you’re one of those who’s frustrated with digital-only coupons, you may want to vote with your dollars and shop at a store that’s tackling coupon inequities.
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Vawn Himmelsbach is a veteran journalist who has been covering tech, business, finance and travel for the past three decades. Her work has been featured in publications such as The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post, Metro News, Canadian Geographic, Zoomer, CAA Magazine, Travelweek, Explore Magazine, Flare and Consumer Reports, to name a few.
