Wow…businesses raise prices sky-high and then lower them a little for a “sale”?!
whoodathunkit…
Geez, that concept has been around longer than I have. But our choices seems to be: 1) get the stupid card and pay regular prices (marked as sale prices) or 2) not get the card and pay higher prices (marked as regular prices).
I agree with the concept of lying on the card, though. Fuck’m.
Try switching cards frequently with acquaintances. The more different from you, the better. Let them try to tabulate THAT!
Do terrorists really worry about saving a few cents on a dollar when buying “terrorist” supplies?
I’ve found two lies work well in this case:
Say you forgot it. Usually the cashiere has a card there they can run through in this case. I suppose some places may not allow this, but it works around here. (My plan if they say no is to just walk out and leave my stuff on the conveyor.)
Say you submitted an application but you didn’t get the card yet. If it’s a check cashing card, they usually won’t issue it on the spot, so this is a valid excuse.
No, of course not.
They’ve got plenty of money from all the dime bags I’ve purchased in my life time.
Probably. I am not a price checker. If I need someting, it goes in my cart. I don’t know from week to week if something is on sale, I don’t scan ads, I don’t clip coupons. I shop for what I need, that’s it. I have to buy the stuff anyway.
I would probably balk at being fingerprinted. I don’t mind being issued a shopping card with my name and address on it though. I don’t see it as any big deal - lots of places already have my name and address on file anyways. What are they going to do - OH MY GOD! SHE BOUGHT TAMPONS!! AND STRAWBERRIES! Anyone walking by my shopping cart couls see the same thing. I’m not THAT paranoid. It’s food and toilet paper and kitty litter, for pete’s sake.
Well, in these stores’ cases, they raise the prices a lot, post-card and then lower them less than they did pre-card.
If this week they haven’t implemented the card, Cokes might be on sale $5/case. Next week, they implement the card. Now, Cokes are $7/case without the card and $5.50 with the card. A savings of $1.50! Wow! That’s pretty impressive…until you consider that the week before, without giving out all your personal information, it was $0.50 cheaper. It’s a deceptive trade practice. Sure, it’s perfectly legal, but that doesn’t make it right.
Boscibo, if the implementation of the cards was actually voluntary (if anyone thinks it really is, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you), you’re saying you would fill out the application and use a card every time you shopped, even though you didn’t need it to get any benefits?
I find it curious that people don’t mind the cards even though it’s been proven that the stores simply raise all of their prices to pay for the maintenance of them. In other words, not only are you giving up personal information that they can use for whatever they want, but they are also charging you more for the privilege.
They didn’t hold a gun to my head to make me fill out the application. I have no problem saying No, but I do have a choice - I can go across the freeway to another grocery store that hasn’t implemented the cards. I need to grocery shop though, there is no way I can get around that. I spend, they keep track of how much I spend, and for every $250 I spend, I get a $10 certifiicate. I don’t see what the big deal is - I need the stuff anyways. I’d probably end up buying food still if the prices are 50 cents higher than last week. I mean, it is a necessity, and I’m not into growing my own. I do save money by using the card - say 1.50 on a case of Coke, I’d pay 6.50 without the card. They aren’t going to sell it to me for $5 just because I can say it was only $5 a few weeks ago. That’s the way it works - the stores set the prices.
I only got an Advantage card at Giant Eagle so I could rent movies.
Like I said above, I’m a marketer. I use my card whether I’m getting any kind of discount or not (and frequently, if I’m just running in for an item or two or to get a prescription refilled, I’m not). Safeway already knows what kind of birth control I’m taking, since it’s their pharmacy - why in the world would I care if they also know that I like Diet Coke?
I don’t mind giving up the personal information, either. It’s in the damn phone book - it’s not like it’s hard to find out. I like targeted marketing. I don’t give my e-mail address, but that’s about the only question I won’t answer.
I don’t see what they can find out from my buying record, other than the fact that I’m a cheap son of a gun.
I buy wherever I get the lowest prices, and that varies every week. Sometimes it’s the stores where I need a card, and sometimes it’s the stores with no card. I don’t see how the card can drive up prices, when I only buy from stores with the card when it’s a true sale, i.e. when the price is lower than elsewhere.
What are they going to find out about me, that fact that low prices on Diet Coke will bring me into the store? Great, let them lower their prices on Diet Coke, and I’ll show up. I probably won’t buy anything else, though. Right now, the local SuperAmerica gas chain has it for 67 cents for a 2 liter bottle, and that’s cheaper than anywhere else, so I’m buying it there. When the local Giant Eagle had a sale on butter for 99 cents a pound, I bought 10 pounds. Yeah, it had a limit of one per customer, but it’s right near the house, and so far, it’s proved to be one per customer per visit. So far, they haven’t used the “one per customer” as an absolute, checking my buying record to see if I have bought one at any other time during the sale.
I am sure we would all prefer the lower prices from before the card showed up. But there are 2 stores in my town, both chains, both have a card system, and I am pretty sure that driving the 45 minutes to the next grocery store will end up costing me more than I would save. So it kind of makes sense for me to get the card and save what I can.
I don’t actually mind that the Dillon’s store that is the closest grocery store to my home has one of these cards. But I don’t like them and won’t have one, as I won’t help them with their research for nothing. But it’s their store, they can do it if they want to.
What I do mind is that when I stop in there on the way home from work, and happen to pick up an item that is supposed to be bargained price if you have the card, that I am often asked why I don’t. You see, the shirt I wear at my job comes from the same uniform supply shop that gets this store their shirts, and it looks almost identical. So I am always getting “you * work[/] here and you don’t have a card?” “I don’t work here!!!” “But you’re wearing one of our shirts!” “No, I’m not, see? I don’t have the green collar!” Aaaagghhh!!! Having other customers in the store ask me where to find things is a minor problem besides this one.
Previewing my italics would have been nice.
The store nearest me instituted one of these cards recently. I emailed them to inform them that I would now be going to a store a mile farther away that didn’t try to blackmail me into giving them valuable information. They never responded.
I know I save money when I shop, but I do wish they cared enough about me as a customer to give the savings without a card.
About 80% of the things I buy are “card savings” or things I have coupons for. Many times I can combine the two for a really good deal. For example, just today I took my ice cream coupons to pick up a half gallon. Now, I don’t care what brand I buy as long as it is not the store brand (this goes for ice cream only; most other things the store brand works fine)
Turkey Hill ice cream was on sale for $2.50 for a half gallon. All other name brands were at least 3.99, some even more. My $1.00 coupon meant I got the half gallon for a buck and a half.
Multiple this principle by a whole cart load of groceries, and you see how well I can do.
As far as the artificial-raising-of-prices-means-phantom-card-savings thing goes, it’s easy enough to see if that’s what is happening. Just look at the competing brands. Whether it’s pasta sauce, bacon, orange juice, etc., most brands are fairly close in price. The store always has at least one brand on card saving. Why pay $4.19 for a pound of bacon if you can get a competing brand for $2.29? Some people are brand shoppers, I’m sure, but I’m not.
Could the store offer these types of savings without a card? Yes, I’m sure they always have and I don’t like having to jump through the hoops to get the savings. But seeing that this is how they do it these days, I’d be stupid to forego the savings. Biting off my nose to spite my face and all that.
Besides, when my favorite store went to the card about a year ago, I wrote a letter of opposition to the company. They told me I could receive a “dummy card” by submitting a blank application–just to activate the card number. So that’s what I did.
Look at it this way. At least you don’t have to subscribe to get these savings.
A few years back, I was running errands and doing some housework for a homebound woman. She had a Vons discount card, and at that time, you had to pay a yearly fee to be a “Vons club” member. Ralph’s and Lucky (which had not yet been swallowed up by Albertons) also had club cards, but they were free. The price differences at Vons were amazing, compared to the other two stores, but I could never have bought enough to justify the yearly fee on a card of my own. “Mary” let me use the card for my own purchases, provided I paid, so she could get extra points, and we were both satisfied.
Shortly after I stopped working for her, Vons dropped the yearly fee and the point system. The price differences became slightly less drastic, but the savings were still worth pursuing, so I have a card. Other advantages are that I don’t have to carry the card, just key in my phone #, and the membership is valid at other stores owned by the same company. Mr. Rilch and I found this out when we were at Pavilions with Friend Down South, buying stuff that would have been outrageous if the machine hadn’t recognized my number.
Meanwhile, Albertsons bought Lucky and did away with club cards. Whatever. As long as I don’t have to pay upfront and hope I can buy enough to offset a fee.
Looks like many grocery stores are all starting to do this at the same time (although, with the way things are these days, 20 differently-named stores could all be owned by the same company).
When a big Wal-Mart Supercenter moved in right across the street from Winn Dixie, I tried to shop more at WD - help out the little guy, you know? Albertson’s had already put a Winn Dixie out of business at a store a couple of miles away, and I didn’t want to see it happen in my neighborhood. Plus, WD always has the cheapest beer. I don’t drink that often, but it’s still a nice plus, and I can pick up some decently priced groceries while I’m there.
About a month ago, Winn Dixie instituted the dreaded cards. Now WD is just “the beer store” to me. Considering the fact that I only bought one six-pack in the last month (and that’s about average for me), their card is doing them more harm than good, at least as far as the profits garnered from this particular customer go.
These cards remind me of the guy at Radio Shack asking for my name and address every time I go there. It’s annoying and intrusive.
Last time I shopped at Radio Shack and the cashier asked “Last Name?” to start off the process. I made a face and said “None of your business. Just let me buy my damn solder.” He did. Good thing, too, because there are just too many things Radio Shack carries that I can’t find anywhere else in town.
You’re not actually saving money, you’re just getting less screwed than others. And as it’s been stated before, the “savings” are usually not savings. For example, at the local store I’m not shopping at anymore:
Precard price for product: $4.50
Post Card price for product: $5.00 with/$6.50 without.
And yes, the stores set the prices, but in order for them to make money the need someone to pay those prices. I won’t. I’ll shop in a store that doesn’t use the cards.
Winnowill My information is not in the phone book, and I do care about people having my name, address, and phone number.
What pisses me off the most about it, though, is the fact that these stores have the gall to act as is no one was going to figure out the scam. And a scam it definitely what it is.
The stores are artificially increasing prices at a time when a lot of people out there don’t have any additional income. There are people out there (and some on this board, I’ll wager) for whom an increase of 10 or 15 percent on a grocery bill causes problems. If using the card acutally saved you money instead of dropping the price down to something that was higher than it was pre-card I don’t think I’d have as much of a problem with it. I still don’t want to give them any real information about myself.
Is that the “little guy” that’s got a $2.1 billion market cap and who reported net earnings on August 7 of $52.8 million? That’s a weird definition of “little guy.”
“Little guy?” Winn Dixie Stores Inc. has a market cap of more than $2 billion, and FY02 net income of $87 million. That’s an odd definition of “little guy.”