I don’t know if you would join with a loyalty card if you weren’t already a customer. Walmart is cheaper on most things, but you have to be willing to go to Walmart. Some of us are not. Drug stores like Walgreens and CVS are generally less expensive than super markets on toiletries and such so I am saving money by going there. If they give me twenty dollars to spend there or a 25% off coupon for doing nothing different, yippie.
And did you know that wine at Walgreen’s is 50 cents cheaper per 5 liter box than it is anywhere else???
…well…I just happened to notice…
But you are doing something different–you’re paying for a loyalty card. At least, I assume they’re all a paid feature, as, otherwise, how the heck does it help them? You can’t keep track of how loyal I am, and I have no reason to be loyal if I can just get a card and then shop elsewhere.
(We don’t really have loyalty cards anywhere around here, except, apparently, Walgreens. I knew they had a prescription drug program that I am no longer a part of now that they don’t work for Medicaid patients, but I didn’t know it was also a loyalty card program.)
You don’t have to pay for a loyalty card, at least not in my experience. Although, I was shocked when I went to Harris Teeter a week or so ago and wanted to get their card to take advantage of a sale. They wanted me to give my driver’s license number(!) and wouldn’t process the card without it. IIRC, their reasoning was to make sure there was only one cardholder per household. That’s waaaaaay over the line just to save a buck. The kicker was that the cashier scanned their courtesy card when I told her why I didn’t have one, so I got the sale price anyway. So why require that level of ID if you’re going to just use the courtesy card?
It makes sense to me to carry cards for the stores I shop at frequently anyway. But having a loyalty card is not enough to make me switch stores. For instance, I have a CVS card and a Walgreens card, and one of each store within walking distance of my house and directly across the street from each other. But CVS also happens to be in the same shopping center as my usual grocery store, there is a CVS in my office building, and one right at the top of the stairs of the Metro station I use on the weekends. No matter how great the deals at Walgreens, they’ll never match the convenience of CVS for me. (Plus I love the CVS extra care buck deals - those and coupons saved me $70 two weeks ago.)
There used to be stores that required you to become a member in order to get a card. You couldn’t even enter the stores without showing the card. You had to qualify in some way, and I believe that you had to pay for the card, as well. However, the prices at the members’ clubs were actually significantly lower than prices in regular stores. I think that this is how Sam’s Club still works, but I’m not sure, I’m not a member.
For stores that are open to the general public, though, I’ve never heard of one charging for a loyalty card, and most of them seem to have a guest card number that the cashier can enter if a shopper doesn’t have their own card, or doesn’t have it with them. The appeal of the loyalty cards to customers is lower prices, and if they actually have their own card, as opposed to using a guest card, then they get targeted ads. The downside to customers, if they use their own info, is that they get targeted ads, and there’s privacy concerns. The upside to cards for stores is that the cards encourage customers to shop at a particular chain. In addition, the stores can get the bargain hunters (those who won’t buy anything unless they can believe that they are getting a special deal) and the price-is-no-object customers, who like to appear above any concerns about money. The stores can also collect demographics, which tell them where to market their stores and products, and what sort of consumers will buy both infant formula and frozen dinners, for instance. This sort of info is valuable for stores.
My most-used card is my grocery card, which does have my real information. There are advantages to the card:
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I get mailed the weekly flyer, which every so often contains a coupon (usually $5.00 off on purchase of $50+) that is not in the general flyers.
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Extra online no-clip coupons, though usually not for products I use
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Gas rewards - for every $100 spent, I get $0.10/gallon at Shell stations. Plus, they often run point specials which, when they align with my shopping needs, are a great bonus. The highest we’ve gotten was $2.00/gallon discount, which saved about $30 on a fill-up. Usually, we save between $0.50 and $1.00/gallon (we don’t drive a lot).
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Extra discount - the supermarket used to have a monthly promotion where if you spent $300 in the month, you got 5% off your next trip (usually within two weeks)
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Free stuff - reach a certain threshold, and at this time of year, you get a free or heavily discounted turkey or ham.
I think one of the pharmacies also has a gas promotion, but I don’t visit or spend enough at pharmacies to pay close attention.
So, if you shop at my supermarket and you don’t want to get a card, please use mine. 
P.S. Loyalty card is free
Hey, none of that cheap box stuff for me! I only drink the finest, $2 a bottle Walgreen’s wine.
This is the most pointless whine I’ve read this week. Is 1/16 of an inch of keychain real estate that precious to you? I suspect Walgreens won’t miss your business.
I guess some people would like shopping to be a game, with prizes and rewards and quests and Special Bonus Rounds; and others would prefer not to deal with all of that, and would rather have stores take the money they spend running the game and use it toward just lowering their everyday prices.
Y’all need to skip Walgreens and head to Dollar General instead. Same name brand stuff (except the prescriptions), same convenience, usually cheaper prices, and no loyalty cards. They also sell beer and wine (where permitted).
WTF. :rolleyes:
It’s really not a choice HERE. The better supermarkets ALL have loyalty cards, the better pharmacies ALL have loyalty cards. The ones that don’t are NOT cheaper. So I will use the one that benefits me the most. If everyone dumped the cards tomorrow AND passed on the savings, I’d have a lighter keyring and be happy. However, if they dropped them and didn’t pass on the savings, I’d be upset/dismayed as it would be the same as increasing prices.
That is just MY LOCAL area, and it has been this way for a number of years. Obviously it is new to you and you don’t like it. Me, I found the silver lining.
It’s actually not my photo, but if I had a Borders card I’d keep it. Collector’s item from back when people read books made of paper!
Please don’t take it personally. I quoted your post because it was full of examples of the kind of “game” approach to shopping I wanted to comment on, not because I was implying anything about you personally.
I instantly throw away all of the physical cards within 5 minutes of me getting them-- I just give the cashier my phone number.
I do that too, except at Winn-Dixie where my number seems to disappear into the ether the second the customer service person records it.
This is what I do too!
I think so. Costco works this way, too (I have a card there. We share the membership with DH’s mother).
I can’t get too excited about privacy issues related to a store knowing stuff about me. I am glad I gave my correct address to Kroger when I got their loyalty card as I get many useful coupons in the mail - tailored to my shopping preferences so they are actually useful. And at the beginning of this month I was mailed coupons totaling $50 where I do not have to buy any specific product - $47 is simply $x or x% off the total amount, and $3 is for meat department purchases. I will have to spend $500 to get that, but we spend more than that each month.
Sometimes Dollar General or Family Dollar has the same stuff, cheaper. However, more often the package at Walgreen’s will have 16 ounces in it, while the packages at Dollar General or Family Dollar will 14 or even 12 ounces, so while they cost less per package, they cost the same amount (or even more) per ounce of product. It’s something you have to watch out for.
Walgreens just bought out a drugstore chain in my area, and shut down its stores. My mom’s pharmacy was the local store of the other chain; she was upset. I feel bad for the people who probably lost their jobs.
By comparison, the OP’s pitting is a big fat meh.