Give Them A Card And Show Them The Door

2004 Sep 23 // Link // E-mail

One of the local shops I frequented for DVD purchasing was the main Sunrise Music store downtown. While the DVD section in the back might look small at first glance, the selection is actually excellent, particularly for old films. (I hesitate to use the term "classic" because, let's face it, just like today most films of the past were nothing of the sort.)

As with every other store on this big round Earth, Sunrise has a frequent buyer card. Ostensibly such cards are meant to reward loyal customers, though a more cynical person than I might suggest they are means of buying such loyalty.

Unlike most loyalty cards, however, the Sunrise card is one you purchase. The membership fee is small, and the resulting "member discount price" on merchandise would quickly recoup the membership fee for someone who buys DVDs with reckless abandon the way I do.

Except that I hadn't bought the card. The reason was that I find loyalty cards a wallet-bulking annoyance that I prefer to leave at home.

However, I bought a sizable stack of DVDs all at once recently and the helpful cash register professional pointed out that buying the card first would actually result in a net savings for that one purchase.

So as I walked home feeling a bit guilty about the non-recyclable bags that held my new armfuls of filmly goodness, my wallet was thicker by the size of one more rewards card.

When I got home I tossed the card on to a pile of its peers, where it has remained to this day. I can see it there poking out from under a local burger joint's stamp card with its single fading stamp.

I was now a card owning, if not card carrying, paid member of the Most Loyal True Blue Sunrise Records Customer Group, or words to that effect. I would now receive special discounted prices on all my future DVD purchases, and presumably on CDs as well. Sunrise and I were at the start of a beautiful friendship.

Except that I have never shopped there since. Oh, I've gone in. I've even picked out the DVDs I wanted to buy. But never once since paying my way into membership have I actually made a purchase in the store. And it's all because of that card.

You see, I don't carry the card around with me. It's just one of a dozen membership cards that sit on my desk at home because I dislike stuffing my wallet with them. I dislike carrying around an extra inch of bulk in my pants—which, by the way, makes me absolutely not the target market for 90% of the spam I receive.

Since I don't carry around the card, I no longer shop at Sunrise. Before I had a membership, I ignored the membership prices. "Oh sure," I'd think on my way to the register, "I could save a buck or so if I bought a membership—but it's not worth shelling out the twenty bucks for a membership right now." So I bought all my DVDs at regular prices. I was a loyal Sunrise customer, and one that was more profitable to the store than those card carrying members because I paid full price.

But now that I have a card, the membership prices represent not a savings but a loss when I shop there. Since I have a card but I don't carry it with me, those one and two dollar discounts are punishments. They're now the extra fee Sunrise is charging me for not carrying around their damn card.

So I have started going across the street to make my purchases in a shop that doesn't reward frequent buyers. I no longer even go into Sunrise, and will probably keep away until my membership expires because the sight of all those "This is how much more you have to pay, Carrington, you big sucker" price stickers are just depressing. (Yes, they really do say that. The words "you" and "sucker" are even in boldface, which, I'm not ashamed to say, hurts.)

Some membership cards work for me. I don't like them, but the system is effective. Stamp cards, for instance, work if I can redeem multiple cards. "A free sandwich with 10 stamps, you say? Great! Here are my ten stamps … on ten different cards."

The big question is this: why the hell aren't any stores smart enough to do away with the damn cards and switch to rewarding their actual customers instead? Let us have pass phrases or pin numbers.

Or a secret handshake! That would seal my purchasing loyalty forever, and I bet I'm not alone.

If you're still sold on a card system, perhaps for nostalgia sake, then at least let me pick my own card. There's no reason whatsoever it has to be a particular card. Any magnetic stripe card would do. (I know of what I speak—I've written card access software.) Let me swipe any damn card I please, then have your software hash it and index my account accordingly. We customers are all sure to have something suitable on us, perhaps a driver's license or a library card or a Blue Blazer Regulars identification card.

On the other hand—and I realize I'm probably talking nonsense now—if we're such a frequent and appreciated customers why don't you just recognize us by sight? You might have kept my business that way.

I'll be across the street shopping at your competition while you think it over.