I have never liked the ubiquitous supermarket reward programs we have in this country.
When I go to the supermarket, I want to pick my groceries at the posted prices, go to the cash register, pay and leave.
Instead, many of our local stores, like Vons and Ralphs (and many others) ask whether I have my rewards card with me. When I say I don’t, they ask for my phone number, because my number is associated with my account, and presumably me, and they can use that to look me up. Of course, since I don’t have an account, my phone number won’t work either.
So I do not get the best price. I pay more, sometimes significantly more, for my articles.
Why?
I do not pretend to know all that is behind this strategy, but obviously the stores want to know my identity to they can track my buying habits. I don’t cooperate because I am not a card-carrier and I object to being tracked. (Yes, I know, it’s ridiculous, since I conform in many other areas…)
But here is my point: Whatever the stores are intending with this is not working. That I know for sure.
When I was at Ralphs the other day buying Christmas wrapping goods, my bill came out to be $10.58. The cashier asked me for my rewards card. I didn’t have one. He was nice to me, so he pulled out his own key chain and scanned his card for me. That reduced my bill by a total of $2.00. Not an insignificant percentage, just for carrying a card!
I was happy. I “saved” $2.00.
When I left the store I looked at the receipt:
My friendly checkout clerk has a rewards number ending in 8826 (blue box). By giving me my discount of $2.00 (green box) he added 8 points to his own rewards account (red box). I don’t know what that means, but I am sure it eventually results in some discount or other benefit.
This cannot be the intent of the Ralphs rewards program. They have no idea who I was and what I bought, but they gave me the discount, and they gave their employee the rewards points.
I prefer grocery stores that give everyone a good price without these crazy games.
I’m with you. I don’t need green stamps or reward cards etc. How about a fair price and a reasonable profit without any gimmicks?
Just get the card and don’t register it. it still works, and you get the rewards as well. None of mine are registered in my or any other name, and yet yesterday I shopped for 140 $ and with card it was 83$
Actually, I do that too. I keep the card in the car, so I don’t carry it around. But then, I keep forgetting it in there. I have left shopping carts in the store, gone out to the car and get the card. Make like $50 a minute for the walk, right? Silly system.
You could do what a group of friends and I used to do — we periodically swapped cards. Since we were all age groups, some single, some married, with & without kids, that must have really confused their computers! BTW, these records are discoverable and can be used as court evidence. In one divorce case, the wife used her husband’s records of beer and liquor purchases as evidence of his heavy drinking.