My wife went to the drug store yesterday. She bought 3 small things and came back with a receipt that is 24.875” in length. I measured it. It’s indicative of how desperate some retailers have become in today’s marketplace.
I had a similar experience at our local Hallmark card shop. I was there to buy a simple Father’s Day card and the saleswoman kept following me around directing me to special promotions in the store.
I just needed one simple card!
No, I don’t want to see plastic Star Wars Christmas Ornaments in July!
When I checked out, she tried to sell me on joining their “Gold Crown Club”, told me about the exclusive offer on my receipt (it expires in just 10 days!), and asked me to call the 1-800 number to take a survey.
She should be happy I ignored her on taking the survey.
I recently saw this picture from a store in Korea where you could signal if you want to be left alone by the color of basket you chose. Great idea … except I’ll guess no one ever wants the orange baskets!
Sorry for the Monday morning rant. A lot going on right now. Look forward to hearing your rants on retail offer overreach!
Image: (c) MrFireStation.com; Reddit.com
MrFireStation 
I find the incessant “do you want to open a credit card?” pitch annoying. No, I am actually stupid enough to pass up a 10% savings on my $30 purchase. Just sell your stuff. Don’t try to get me to go into debt to do so. Feeling your stress, Mr. Fire. Hang in there.
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Agree! – The credit card offers are nonstop. I read recently that Delta airlines makes almost all of their profit from their cobranded American Express credit cards. Amex pays them almost $7B a year to offer the cards and they only made $4.6B in profit last year!
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I agree but as a specialty store service is what we do best! We ask customers if they need assistance and in our business 90% do, if they do not we let them wonder.
I do dislike when you go to purchase something from certain stores and they are trying to get you to sign up for this reward program, their credit card, donate to their charity, extended warranty ……. I just want to buy the item. We do not do this.
It also is bother some when you go into a store that has all these items on sale only if you sign up for their club. Just what I want, 1 more club, rewards program, password app. sometimes it seems like I waste 1/2 of our time trying to log into things!
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It depends on the store & shopper. If a guy tells you he is just there for a water bottle, you don’t need to show him around the store. I told the lady I was just going to grab a Father’s Day card and she wanted to show me all of their gift items.
Other than my Delta SkyMiles / AmEx Card, I can’t think of any loyalty programs I belong to. Not interested – too much work to figure everything out. I like the Walmart approach – your best price everyday, no games. I wish more stores did that.
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Walmart has loyalty programs. They just don’t get in your face with them. I visited their website and I saw they have cobranded credit card with a 3% rebate. They also have an annual subscription offering that includes free delivery, otherwise you have to buy over $30 to get delivery included.
Here are several money maker programs loyalty programs I have signed up for.
Costco Executive Membership that has a Citigroup VISA card on the other side. I get around $300 rebates from each per year for a total around $600.
I signed up for Ralph’s Boost and the Rewards Program. Ralph’s is our local Kroger’s outlet. The rewards program save me a lot of money with digital coupons and everyday specials. If you buy six bottles of wine at a time, you save 30%. Two 12 packs of beer on special is around 40% off. Most Friday’s are 4X gas fuel points. Boost gives you an additional fuel point per dollar spent. Buy $200 worth of groceries on a Friday and you get a dollar off already discounted gasoline. I saved $26 filling the tank on my full sized van yesterday. Finally, Boost gives you free delivery for purchases over $35. I live 13 miles from the closest store which is around a half hour each way. The shoppers seem to get through the store much faster than I can. Let’s estimate I save an hour and a half every time I use their delivery service. Plus I save gasoline.
Then you have Amazon Prime. I originally subscribed to the service because they produced the Bosch TV Series based on the Michael Connelly books. Prime gives you free television programming and music on your Alexa enabled device. And the free delivery service is a real time and money saver. Their cobranded Chase VISA gives me a 5% rebate on every Amazon purchase.
I probably get several thousand in tax free rebates every year and hours of my time back per week. Good programs don’t need to force themselves on you. You want to use them of your own accord. Yes, I agree that there are bad actors to be avoided like the plague.
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Those are all great programs and ways to save money if you want to take the time. When I worked at MegaCorp, we segmented about 20% of people as “Savvy Gameplayers” – people who would search out coupons, programs, and shop multiple stores. Companies have a hard time making any money on those people.
What I don’t like is retailers wasting MY time pushing their programs. They need to do a better job understanding who is a Savvy Gameplayer, and who is not. Turn off the people you make money on and you’ll be out of business before long.
I generally value my time at $75-$100 an hour. Everyone is different, but I don’t want to play games to save only a few bucks. I appreciate stores like Target (for the most part) & Walmart (almost always) that give me their best price upfront.
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I was curious about the value of the rebates and discounts.
I was curious about the value of the loyalty programs I participated in over the past year, so I totaled them up and was shocked when I came up with a total of $6,675 for coupon savings and rebates.
Back when I used to travel for business, miles paid for my family vacation flights, free Marriott nights gave me rooms, and National gave me cars.
I am not using stupid little coupons like the one’s from the pharmacy. The only paper I ever touch are the Home Depot 10% off coupons, which are worthwhile when buying big ticket items. The stupid little coupons are like a pushy salesman who just scares people away.
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That’s a LOT of savings! Was there a couple programs that contributed the most – like a credit card rebate?
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My biggest savings by far was Ralph’s Rewards at just under $4,000 followed by my Chase Sapphire and Amazon Rewards Cards. 10% off coupons can really add up when making major purchases such as appliances at Home Depot. The combination of Costco and their branded Citigroup card was worth around $600.
I do not drive around town or spend a lot of time to get the best price on groceries or dole out paper coupons. I do look at Ralph’s weekly ad when planning the menu and clip digital coupons for items I already buy and look for items mostly meat and produce that are on sale. It takes maybe five minutes per week. Buying wine and beer in bulk and steering towards brands on special really adds up. I wasn’t this way until I got with my wife 31 years ago. She taught me that saving money can be played like a game. After doing it for so long, I have a strategies I follow and don’t spend extra time. I focus on big money savers. You can see it in the grocery store. The clerks know me as the guy who eats clean and has a total where $50 to $70 is whacked off a hundred and something.
By far the majority of my shopping is online, and it saves me hours a week from driving around. My sons commented recently they cannot understand how Ralph’s can afford to deliver groceries in about an hour, on discounted items for no extra charge. I am perplexed about the economics as well, but am taking advantage of it while its available.
Here is one last money saving tip. Even though I am retired, hotels and rental car companies are still willing to extend me the same pricing when I was traveling corporate. I just booked a Marriott in Madison this summer that was about half off list price.
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“Saving can be played like a game” …. You are a perfect ‘Savvy Game Player’. 👍🏻
That’s an unbelievable amount of savings just from groceries! I think we only spend $6-$8K a year total on groceries.
Ralph’s traditionally has been a “Hi/Lo” merchandiser. They charge exorbitant mark-up everyday (40%) and then discount to 0% (or less) to drive traffic. With the free delivery offer I’d say they are certainly losing money. That’s a tough game for them to play on their end.
Target likely takes about a 30% markup, Walmart maybe 20-25%. Costco & Sam’s even less (10-15%) – although the Club stores get their margin upfront with the membership fee. All of their profits come from that.
We primarily shop at Target for groceries. We get 5% off with their Red Card which gets us closer to Walmart pricing. If I’m shopping by myself I’ll go over to Walmart now and then. They have some big packs & brands that Target doesn’t carry.
We also have a Costco membership, but we don’t go there too often. We mostly use it for Costco Travel – which almost always beats my old corporate travel discounts.
Hey, maybe I’m a ‘Savvy Game Player’, too! I just don’t like playing the game so much!
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