As I head towards retirement, I have done a lot of work this year on exactly where our household spends its money.
It’s actually very easy to download our spending for each month and put it on a spreadsheet.
Long story short, I have kept on eye on what we spend in various categories and one of the biggest is Groceries and mostly it is at the local Coles.
Without going into details, the spending is in the thousands so much so that I was thinking of approaching Coles and asking them if they would do a deal (e.g. staff discount) to keep my custom.
There is a Woolworths nearby as an alternative and I could probably do the same with them.
My question is: has anyone else done this? If so, what was your approach?
Agree with @Fred123, the likelihood of any of the supermarkets giving an individual customer a discount card is zero. If they give one customer a discount card, then every loyal customer would have the right to request one.
However, there may be other ways if you have free time to obtain a staff discount card. It may be worth enquiring if they would be interested in having a volunteer working in store. For example, a person to help others (elderly, disabled etc) complete their shop. If they are willing to have a volunteer, they may be willing to extent a staff discount card to such volunteers if the volunteering adds value to the customer experience. I would suggest that if a customer needs shopping assistance, then a volunteer would add value.
I am not sure if the major supermarkets all voluntary work in their stores, but it would never hurt in asking. One may need to commit to a few hours/day(s) per wee though…which is why I asked whether you have free time.
If you will be a pensioner when you retire, there may also be other ways to save a few cents here and there:
I doubt it, but something you might consider is that depending on your affiliations you can often buy gift cards at a 5% discount from the organisation’s web site. RACV and NRMA do Woolies and RACQ does Coles, as examples. A wide range of companies that offer rewards programs have smilar offers.
Once upon a time there were two stores. Coles and Myers. And yes they along with other big companies offered shareholders discount cards. It worked really well for us as when we had the option we chose where to shop. The discount was a straight forward black and white percentage discount. We all know what we get now. A loyalty card with opaque value and dubious offers where you need to spend more time than you have sweating and analysing every offer.
We’d love to go back to a straight discount. Our local Puma servo does 4cpl off for RACQ members. It is equal cheapest or better before discount and there is nearly always a que.
Perhaps we could ask the big stores if they might offer a proper discount to any one with a seniors card! After all it’s unlikely we are going to buy them out of baby formula or party lollies?
Or if you buy Premium 98 the discount is 6 cents a litre. Easy saving as generally their price is a good comparison to most other petrol retailers to begin with.
Supabarn in Canberra offered a seniors’ discount of 5% on Wednesdays. Plus they paid $4 towards parking (on any day) if you spent $100 or more. That added up to a lot more value than any flybys or loyalty cards. Unfortunately, Supabarn sold most of their stores to Coles and there is no Supabarn near me now. There is supposed to be a new one opening some time in the future in Kingston which is an extra 5-8 mins drive. If they have the 5% seniors discount it will be worth going a bit further to shop there.
