Sainsbury's - Shopping for Generation X

        I blame Green Shield Stamps, myself. For in the beginning there were
Green Shield Stamps, and so it came to pass that the marketing people of this
fair country persuaded people that the concept of paying extra for goods in
return for later reward was Good and Trendy. Hence the grocery giants have
been borrowing interest-free from the public ever since, and nobody minds.
        Sainsbury's recently decided to lop 1% off the cost of all their
goods. However, had they done this blatantly and openly, nobody would really
care. (Unless they had done it openly and ironically; it might have worked
had they done the 1% discount in the form of extra cash handed to you with
great flourish at the checkout. A penny here, fourteen pence there. It would
have been quite funny.) However, Sainsbury's decided that they would gain
more by introducing the Reward Card. This flat, being full of Witty and
Imaginitive People, refers to it as the Retard Card. Doubtless thousands of
Witty and Imaginitive People all around this country do likewise.
        The Retard (er, Reward) Card works by awarding you one point for
every full pound you spend on qualifying products (so long as you spend at
least five). The points are stored in a central register and on each
receipt you get a printout of your balance. This is Cool and hence better
than handing the 1% to you there and then. Furthermore, if you want to be
Ever So Clever, you can buy things that are reduced normally anyhow (hey,
a supermarket wouldn't be a supermarket without Special Offers), and get
the Reward Points as well. I'd call this piggy-backing discounts, and it's
Ever So Generation X. Oh, how my heart skipped when I realised I could
capitalise on 2-for-1 and pay-for-small-get-large offers from Burger King
once; what pride I took in getting about œ6's "worth" of food for œ2.88!
        Once you accumulate 250 such points, you get a Reward Voucher. You
have spent at least œ250, and you get 1% back; it's worth œ2.50 off your
next shopping bill. This is slightly weedy and anticlimatic. However those
fun-lovers at Sainsbury's have made their Reward Vouchers more exciting;
instead of a discount on your bill, you can do all sorts of other things
with it, like get a free disposable camera and film processing, or a whole
FIVE POUNDS discount with selected other retailers such as BT or Beefeater.
Wow, double discount - a whole 2%! Most entertainingly, you can use your
Reward Voucher to get 40 AIR MILES (note, not air miles or Air Miles but AIR
MILES). Which, of course, you can use for all sorts of other things apart
from flights. Yes, spend just 500 pounds at Sainsbury's and get two free
admissions to any participating UCI Cinema. Or, spend a mere 3,000 pounds
there (which a large family might conceivably do in a year or two) and get
a free return flight from London to Paris! What fun!
        However, disaster struck Sainsbury's. They released their financial
results recently, and they were bad. They were no longer the UK's Number One
Supermarket, that role having been taken by Tesco, measured by some
financial indicator or other (profits, maybe? Sainsbury "only" posted a
profit of about œ350 million, which was apparently really disappointing.
Shudder! ). Someone in Head Ofice panicked. Oh, what to do - how can we
regain our rightful place at the Top of the Tree? Then a brainwave struck.
Let there be Bonus Points!
        It's just such an inherently game-like concept. Who hasn't, while
playing some game or other, collected a bonus? Much more to the point, who
wouldn't leap at the chance to collect some Bonus Points in real life?
Again, bear that 1% discount in mind; say frozen chickens are selling badly.
Frozen chickens cost œ4 (if they're _so_ big). Now Sainsbury's could lop a
pound off in a fit of generosity. Or, alternatively, cut 25% off (why do
furniture and clothes stores quote their discounts in percent so much?).
Or award œ1's worth of discount in the form of 100 Bonus Points. Wow! People
who actually earn (not get, earn) Bonus Points have zoomed right ahead of
those slowcoaches who are too feeble to take advantage. Reward Vouchers
flash into people's eyes, and they get grand ideas; after all, they're only
thirty frozen chickens away from Paris. Or forty jars of coffee. Or, in our
case, flatmate and I thought we might get one Reward Voucher all year (which
made it marginally worth getting a Retard Card). But now we can get Bonus
Points, we've got 322 points already! Yes, I did always like Coca-Cola, and
can treat myself to a couple of bottles... Mark can splash out on posh
yoghurts for a change instead of cheap ones... all for the bonus points...
        Sainsbury's offer so much more than shopping nowadays, they offer
Value Added Shopping. Shopping plus Fun. They have reduced it to a game -
"how many points can YOU score?" - and in conversation at least one person
has (erroneously) compared it to Supermarket Sweep. Well done, Mr. Sainsbury,
and thanks ever so. How did I ever survive in the past without Bonus Points?