My syndicated Super-Couponing Tips column for the week is entitled “Can ‘diverted product’ save you money?”
Here’s an excerpt:
” I was shopping and some store-brand air fresheners were on sale. However, they were not the store-brand for the store I was actually in at the time! I thought it was very odd to see a competitor store’s product in this store. At first I thought maybe someone returned the item to the wrong store, but they had a whole shelf full of these air fresheners. How could something like this happen?”
Read this entire column at the Quad Cities Dispatch.
My Super-Couponing Tips column appears in newspapers around the country to a weekly readership of over 20 million people! Learn more about my column’s syndication at this link.
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sonya James-Reeves says
Dear Jill,
I read your column in the free flyer from the Post and Courier that arrives in my mailbox in Hanahan SC. I am an occasional coupon user and like learning some things from what you write. I wish to comment on this recent posting. I would be apprehensive on items that become available to through a diverter if they told me that it was created for another country and weren’t expected to be purchased in the US. Some products may contain manufacturing additives or ingredients that are not accepted here or are banned for use in the US. Some countries have even stricter standards than we have. It would be interesting to know how or why some of these diverted products are different . Are they safe? Are they here legally? Do they contain ingredients or additives that are questionable? Sometimes less expensive is not a bargain. Your thoughts?
Coupon Maven says
I think you have to consider which country or countries products like these may have been intended for. With something like a toothbrush created for another country with similar standards and standards of living to our own, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I agree that you’ve raised important questions about items which may contain ingredients prohibited in the USA. On the other hand, other countries, especially some in Europe, have banned many additives and chemicals which are common and approved for use in the USA.
A lot of the diverted products I see at this particular store are not food items — they’re household products and items. Considering how many of the things we buy in the USA are already imported from other countries, I’m not sure how high the risk is here if you are buying an air freshener intended for one store in another. :)