The French owned discount supermarket chain Total-Prix has introduced a novel new loyalty scheme for its shoppers.
The new scheme is different because customers get rewards up front, and earn the loyalty points to pay for them later. This gets over the main problem with ordinary schemes, which is that it takes too long to save up your points to earn rewards. The long wait for a reward puts off many shoppers and they drift away to other stores.
A spokesman for Total-Prix said, ‘This will rubbish all your so-called English reward schemes. Our rewards celebrate the best of french culture unlike your boring old nectar points. And there is no waiting for our rewards – sign up and take them home right now. Take that, ros-bifs!’
Rewards under the new scheme will include a five litre plastic container of top quality french wine, five kilograms of very runny and very smelly soft cheese, pernod, Gauloises, and CDs by top quality french bands.
Shoppers who don’t earn back the points required from shopping will be able to buy out the obligation to the store in other ways. For example, they could stack shelves, pick up litter in the car park, apprehend shoplifters or clean out the dumpsters.
Consumer groups are keen to promote competition between supermarket chains and have welcomed this innovation. They are a bit concerned that shoppers who select the wine reward, for example, will need to shop at the store every week for three to four years to pay for it.
Rachel Reeves has asked if she could get a hospital under the new scheme, and wanted to know how long it would take to pay for it.