Ahh - the usual cycle of Sainsbury's vouchers through the door. There must be a big shopping weekend coming up. We do most of our grocery shopping through Sainsbury's, a main shop every 2-3 weeks, online and delivered - we've signed up to their service for free delivery - plus occasional top-ups/one-offs. Every few months we get these Direct Mail "treats", to try and secure our shopping at key points in the year, so we don't get tempted off to Aldi or Waitrose or both. And through the power of Nectar they've presented us with 12 different vouchers, total value more than £10, all for items we buy pretty much every fortnight. Perfect for the shop we want to get delivered early next week... ...except... ...as per normal procedure with Sainsbo's, these vouchers can only be used instore. So, a bit less of an Easter Treat in that we have to schlep our way to the store and then cherry-pick out these items from all around the aisles of a store we only occasionally shop in. This happens pretty much every Easter, Christmas, and probably sometime in the summer too. And it probably makes me feel worse about Sainsbury's, not better. To add to the irony, there aren't any actual Easter Treats in the coupons, no incentive to buy chocolate, or flowers, or hot cross buns. It's all our very middle-class favourites: Earl Grey tea, fruit & veg, risotto rice, fizzy water, olive oil. They know how we shop. They know we spend thousands of pounds a year with them, probably 80-90% of it online. I'm pretty sure their models will show them that they have the majority share of our total grocery shopping. And we pay for the free deliveries. And our reward... is conditional on us doing something very different and going into store to buy things we get delivered probably 20 times a year. Sigh. #customerexperience #crm #customerrewards #grocery #retail #marketing #nectar #behaviourchange
Maddy Morton
8mo
Bonkers…. I can almost picture the team meeting in which some ‘bright spark’ piped up: oooh, we know people buy more instore than online so hey, let’s tie those rewards to a visit!... Forgetting for a moment that, in our jam-packed lives, it would take a lot more than the odd free Easter egg to get us in the car when we could just hang on the sofa …
Freelance Senior Copywriter
8moAh yes, and even when you do shop in store they give you coupons at checkout for the very things you have just bought 🙄 Plus who wants/has time to deal with 10 individual coupons? A simple money-off voucher gets my vote every time. Waitrose used to do that, but sadly now they are just as bad 😏 I feel it should be this simple, quality aside: save us time, save us money and we'll love you.