Why would you think that?
Those with a corporate card may get a higher percentage rebate at the end of the year, but that’s not the same thing as the cashier saying, “Okay, that’s a total of $231.56, plus 1% surcharge for not having a corporate card. $233.88, please.”
You know, I didn’t believe this, so I lookd it up, and it looks like you are right. Data from Costco in Marchsays that they had about $300M of profit on $19B of sales. That’s about 1.5% net margin. Membership fees were $386M, so that actually exceeds net profit. That really surprises me that a business can be successful on margins that low.
But it’s all smoke and mirrors. Do you think the executives are paying for your gas out of their pockets? Prices on everything have to go up to compensate for the stuff on sale, or the stuff on sale is a loss leader to get you into the store. Grocery stores have done this stuff for 100 years. The only thing that has changed is that now you need a card to get the sale price.
Why?
Because it’s the current trend in marketing (last 10 years or so). When someone develops a new marketing idea that is better than “store cards”, then everyone else will change to that.
And even though the OP doesn’t like them, a lot of customers do, which is what the stores care about.
Because I remembered being told that; hence the word “seems”. I may have misunderstood. Doing a little search online, I see that non-members pay a 5% surcharge, so perhaps that’s where I got it from.
Yeah, but there’s enough stuff that’s regularly on sale (with the card) that I actually need, like milk, cheese, meat, etc that makes it worth it. The trick is to not buy other stuff you do not need, or as little of it as possible. The discount on gas thing is just a small amount of gravy. I would use the card without it, but I get small discounts on my gas every so often…what’s wrong with that? And sometimes the gas savings can be significant…like when we’ve racked up a dollar off per gallon and our 20 gallon minivan needs refueled and gas is $4.00/gal…it saves me $20!
I’m not sure why you’re painting it as some bait and switch deal, because to me it doesn’t end up being that way.
A few years ago a friend gave me a great tip for those grocers who require a “club” or “discount” card to get the sales prices - I was traveling, and obviously didn’t have a membership for the local grocer.
If you ask the cashier what the local area code is, and they allow you to key in a phone number instead of scanning/swiping a membership card, just key in the local area code and Jenny’s number from the Tommy Tutone song: 867-5309.
It seems that nearly always someone has filled out a membership application using that as a fake phone number.
You don’t even need to do that. Most cashiers have a ‘generic’ discount card at their checkout, and can swipe that to get the discount, and will do so if you ask them.
Just like they usually have a copy of that weeks newspaper coupons there, and will use them if you forgot your coupons or tore them so they won’t scan.
Also, the loyalty cards don’t really cut prices much – I can get the same 10 for $10 deals on items at the CUB store where I shop, without needing any such card. In fact, the use of ‘loyalty’ cards seems to be related to the wholesaler that supplies the store: in general, SuperValu supplied stores don’t; Fleming/C&S supplied stores do.
I kinda hate the cards (Costco-excluded) because I carry a very slim wallet and I don’t have room for them all (there are several grocery stores I frequent, each with their own card). I usually try to keep them in the car, but I rarely remember to bring them in.
Just recently, I discovered an iPhone app called CardStar that helps. You enter all of your loyalty card numbers, and then it can bring up a bar code for the card. In many stores, they can just scan the barcode right from the phone and it works as well as the real card. In other stores it doesn’t scan directly (e.g. PetSmart has a thing they have to swipe the card through and the phone can’t go through it; other stores seem to just have more finicky scanners). But in those cases, they’ve always been able to key in the number.
The app doesn’t work for Costco (they want to see the real card), and unfortunately it doesn’t work for my main grocery store because they use RFID instead of barcodes. But it really helps overall.
Costco etc work on two ideas:
It is actually more expensive unless you shop there a lot. Thus you will
Homeless dudes and riff-raff can be denied entrance without a lawsuit.
Loyalty cards are another story altogether.
I hate loyalty cards, but the one thing they’re good for for is when there’s been a product recall. I’ve been notified several times over the last few years of contaminated food and safety recalls of stuff I’ve bought from that particular store.