CVS ~ Question: cvs---Has anyone seen CVS offer so few deals in the past

[ekoury]

Originally Posted by Moma I would even be happy with a good toothpaste deal!!

Yeah, so would I. I think it is a combination of the economic crisis and upcoming Holiday season. They are trying to get as many ECB out of us as possible so that we would have to spend real money to aquire new ones.

[deeann7]

I think when they took over longs the deals went south IMO. I find myself at Wags more and more.

[mollysmom]

Thanks for your input I am thinking of just cashing in and giving it up for while. It is just too much work for too little gain. Like a pp siad I have more OOP then i would like and always end up spending more ECB's then earning. The sneak peak for T-giving week is out and I don't see any good deals. So sad ):

[MamaBird06]

i've slowly went from my highest ecbs ever this summer 85$ to now where I only have 24$ ecbs and there seems to be no good deals worth dragging myself up there for soon. I was lucky enough to stop by a store i don't normally frequent and found the arm and hammer essentials from last black friday i had a r/c for, so i was able to roll some ecbs this week, but i also lost about 12$ in the past week too. I'm hoping that there are some good deals for this black friday or i will probably taking a break from cvs soon.

[cute_lil_bmw]

The only "free" ECB's I've been getting at CVS lately have been from filling Rx's there.

Of course I'm trying to only fill them when I have a coupon to do so but as few and far between as those have been (even competitor's like Target), I've basically managed to just pay for the Rx's with the gift cards instead of having a nice surplus to use at Xmas like in years past.

I think it's probably that CVS is just trying to have more $$ on their bottom line just like every other company out there trying to weather this economy right now.

I haven't actively rolled ECB's in almost a year now and honestly, I don't miss it. It was becoming more and more of a chore to do it and with a newborn I don't have the time/energy to drive around to several stores to get the deals because ONE store never has ALL of the deals in stock at any given time anymore.

[bananafishfever]

I've only been doing the CVS deals for a year and a half now so I can't comment on a long term trend. It seemed like last year, the deals were really scarce right before Black Friday and then they had a lot of FAECB stuff for the sale and it made it worthwhile to keep rolling and save up what ECBs you could.

[volunteer925]

Well I'm a quasi-newbie. CVSing since July and it was great. Had deals every week, FAECB's, rolling the ECB's, paying very lil OOP. I read every board and learned all the tips and tricks I could. VERY slim pickings for third week in a row and checking the weeks ahead and maybe one or two items. Crossing fingers it will pick up. I was soooo excited too to finally be able to start with CVS since I'm in Cali and we just got ours.

[clippyclippy]

I'm quite sure that part of CVS strategy is to reduce the number of freebies/deals on a regular basis to prevent continuous rolling. At some point they want you to waste them.
It would seem to be in their best interest, and you can hardly blame them for working the system to their advantage.
Whenever I find myself burning ECBs and spending too much oop, I just think to myself, "You got me this time, CVS!"

[rcbrad]

There is little reason to make CVS a regular habit anymore. It used to be one of the best places to go for great deals. Every aspect of the discounts/deals that they have offered has really slowed down. I guess the ECB program may have backfired at least somewhat, when most people began rolling the ECBS. It moved alot of product and kept people coming back, but most likely there was not the profit that CVS must have been looking for. I know a fair amount of people who do not fool with ECBS anymore, and who used to be big shoppers at CVS.

[mrsfloyd]

I'm still doing okay. No I'm not rolling as many bucks as I used to, but I'm keeping them alive and I'm able to still keep my OOP's low (under $1 and either rolling or making money). The KEY to surviving during the slumps is to have RAINCHECKS from the great deals of the past. EVERY SINGLE TIME there's a freebie deal, go and get your deal if you can but also go check and see if they ran out of the item so you can get a raincheck. EVERY SINGLE TIME there's a moneymaker deal, go and check stock - even if you don't have the coupon for it right then, GET A RAINCHECK b/c you never know when you'll be able to get a coupon in the future to make it a great MM for you. I don't care if you don't need the item, you can donate it somewhere that can use it or at least take it to Goodwill or Salvation Army and they'll sell it cheap and use the money for a good cause. And the BEST PART about rainchecks? You're going to get the deal when no one else is looking for it, so you're not going to have to fight to find stock. AND you don't pay tax on amounts paid for by ECBs that were manually printed, so if you just keep rolling with rainchecks, you get those super-duper low OOP's like we used to have before they started charging tax on ECBs.

You also need to consider deals we've had in the past and use that info to try and plan for possible future deals. 2 years ago we had an AWESOME deal on Nova-Max monitors where they were $20 and we got $20 ECBs back, PLUS there was a CVS coupon that made them FREE, no tax, no nothing. They're free-after ECBs right now this week - even if you don't need to buy them right now to roll your ECBs, keep checking back to see if your store runs out of stock and GET A RAINCHECK. You never know if CVS might put out a nice little coupon that makes them free again sometime in the future, and even if there's not an ECB deal on them right then, you'll have a raincheck to make it an instant moneymaker for you if/when a coupon surfaces. Same thing with other monitors - Contour, Breeze, Accucheck, everything. Always check stock during the weeks we have those deals even if you can't get in on the deal yourself - and ALWAYS get rainchecks on those deals. ALWAYS.

A CVS-er that has a nice stash of rainchecks doesn't have to worry about a 'slow week' or 'slow month' or even longer slump, b/c you're not stuck shopping JUST that week's deals - you have lots of other weeks to play with.

CVS-ing is TOTALLY still doable, you just have to tweak your strategy.