Over the years, I've received some nice "gifts" through my supermarket's loyalty card scheme, including a battery-operated cheese grater, a coffee machine, china, bed linen, numerous saucepans, an onion chopper and a cake slicer that plays "Jingle Bells". Therefore I am sorry to see the "gifts" scheme go, and even sorrier to see what has replaced it.
Sometimes I think the Italian national motto should be, "Don't make things simple if you can make them complicated" and there can be no finer example than the new discount coupon scheme that replaces points and gifts. Here's what you have to do to get your €5 discount coupon:
Present your card at the checkout every time you spend so that you can get one "bonus" [instead of a point] per euro. OK. Then, when you've accumulated 200 "bonuses" you have to BOOK your discount coupon. Yes, book it! You get a receipt for the "booking" which you are supposed to keep and after a week you can collect your coupon - if you remember to ask for it before the expiry date on the receipt and can find the latter in the first place . Finally, if you spend €25 in one go, you can use the coupon!
For goodness sake! Why can't the coupon just be automatically sent to customers' home addresses? Because it would be too simple, that's why! I give up, Italy.
Bring back the points and gifts, please! I could do with another fun cake slicer.....
11 comments:
Here we have the coupons in the Sunday newspaper. I feel guilty when I don't cut them out and then even more guilty when I forget to use them. Why can't they do away with coupons and just lower the prices?
We also get money off on gas when we have our grocery store card scanned.
We knew where we were with Co-op stamps.
Haha. I'm just trying to imagine how their meetings went... How can we stop giving free stuff? is the cynical version but I think it's more likely they thought 'how can we modernise the scheme?' and then some one else said 'internet!' and some one else said 'no think of the elderly they wouldn't like that!' and someone else said what if we did an internet style voucher but without the internet or printers?...
*It's easy not to realise just how stuck in their ways Italians are. This month my boss has being trying to explain that 'email' is now the done thing in the workplace to my colleagues :)
Hi, Betty. I agree - lowering the peices would be much better for everyone! Those were the days, Sackerson. Laruchka, I am giggling at the thought of that meeting! Speechless about your boss.
Nothing in this world is simple; if it were, that would be too simple!
What supermarket is this?!? If they tried to pull that stunt in Bennet, Auchan, and Esselunga, shoppers would be up in arms. I was having lunch over at my neighbors yesterday and the topic turned to the best supermarkets. When I mentioned the points at Esselunga, my neighbor's eyes lit up instantly! IMHO, the "free gifts" at Auchan suck.
Very true Pat, if it's easy it's not good, they have to make it complicated. I also wish they reinstated the points system, my supermarket has no points and no coupons.
That's a good philosophy, Lee! The Conad, Rowena. Hi, Francesca. Yes, the gifts were more fun!
I still haven't worked out the voucher for cheaper petrol that we had the other week. It was supposed to get more the more you bought but I'm not sure how ...
Let me know when you work it out, Liz!
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