Associated Press
When Melissa Garcia was frustrated by Old Navy's scanty coupon offerings, she didn't just complain to the store. She vented on a message board tied to her blog consumerqueen.com, which is read by at least 30,000 people each month and now, increasingly, by corporate America.
Within weeks, chatter in the so-called mommy blogosphere led Gap Inc.'s Old Navy to begin issuing coupons several times a week, instead of just once a week.
Moms have always had marketplace power, but a new frugality driven by rising joblessness, housing woes and other economic problems has them exercising it like never before with the help of the Internet.
In this recession, their talk online encompasses everything from complaints to advice on coupon clipping, low-budget meals and family finance. But it's not just fellow moms who are following every post: Retailers and consumer product makers are listening, too - and responding.
"We see (moms who blog) as a vital force for our brand strategy," said Gap spokeswoman Louise Callagy. "They are the voice of our customers, and we are working harder to develop and maintain their trust and respond to their feedback."
After picking up chatter on blogs that was advocating layaway purchase plans be restored at its namesake department stores, Sears Holdings Corp. brought them back over the holidays after a two-decade hiatus. And Sears' Kmart chain now accepts online coupons and has launched a Web site called Kmart.com/coupons that makes it easier to find specific deals, in response to chatter on mom-oriented blogs.
Companies and the bloggers themselves are mutually benefiting. Consumer-product companies like home-appliance maker Frigidaire and Unilever, maker of Suave shampoo, are hoping to enhance their brands by giving free samples of their merchandise to key women bloggers to test.
And bloggers who focus on penny pinching are helping broaden spending behavior like doubling up on online coupons because of their large collective audience.
Money-saving strategies can spread like lightning.
Traffic to blogs written by moms and devoted to saving money has exploded. Couponmom.com - cited by Nielsen Online as one of the five most influential of that breed - attracted 972,0000 unique visitors in March, five times more than a year earlier, according to Internet research company ComScore Media Metrix's latest data.
That's why last summer Walmart Stores Inc. created an online community - elevenmoms.com - on its company Web site that spotlights key women bloggers and pulls together the links to their blogs, including those that focus on frugality like dealseekingmom.com, couponcravings.com, beingfrugal .net and consumerqueen.com.
Walmart says the site fits with it's mantra of saving consumers money. Company spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien said the discounter doesn't pay the 24 bloggers featured, though it does give them free products for review or for giveaway. O'Brien said the retailer requests that the bloggers reveal such disclosure on their sites.
The big audiences and newfound influence have led to opportunity for some of the most prominent bloggers.
Among the most influential mom-oriented blogs Nielsen cites is 5dollar dinners.com, written by Dayton, Ohio, resident and mother of two Erin Chase, 31, who shares daily tips on how she plans and shops for nutritious $5 dinners such as homemade vegetarian pizza for her family of four. She just signed a deal with St. Martin's Press to publish a book on the subject.
Source: AZ Central
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