With the rise of discount offers and reward points, shopping today has become a rather complicated affair
JAY JOSHI
For many of us, shopping is a simple experience. You choose a product, pay for it, and take it home. However, as businesses became more competitive, a new phenomenon entered the markets to compete with the money as the medium to buy stuff: reward points. Amidst a number of deals and offers, many businesses, online as well as offline use a system of reward points to encourage the customers to shop with them. Customers gain reward points when they shop, and then must redeem these points by shopping further. To those who are not as materialistic, this might seem like a vicious circle, but for those who know how to hunt for the best deals and discounts, the reward points system is another way to gain easy access to covated goodies.
Owing to a number of offers, coupons, deals, and the like, shopping today has become quite a complicated experience, and customers have mixed views about how the shopping experience has evolved over the years.
“I am aware that reward points is a system designed to keep you shopping more and more, but if you use it wisely, you can still make good gains,” says Mona Kulkarni, an HR professional from Pune. “Most people use reward points to gain discounts when making big purchases, but I prefer to get a small gift hampers using these points, and then gift these hampers to my relatives and friends. Thus, we can say they subtly help me cement relationships!, quips Mona.
While savvy shoppers such as Mona use the system to make such gains, many users still shop in the conventional way i.e. by straight away paying the MRP of the item without making any effort to hunt for deals and offers. “Only a few of my purchases with big brands are online, and I do not always consider things such as reward points. Such systems are designed to keep people shopping,” says Alisha Gadekar, a writer from Dhargal. “I value shopping with local businessmen more than anything because shopping local helps people whereas shopping with big brands and online only adds to the coffers of multinational corporations,” she adds.
Many shoppers often forget to consider discount coupons and reward points, which then expire after the due date, while many others face a number of hassles while trying to redeem the points.
“I had once shopped at a clothing store and wanted to redeem reward points worth Rs 500. However, even after I instructed the salesperson to redeem my points, he refused, stating he had already made the bill,” informs Sushila Kundaikar from Panaji. “I have often found that many stores will be reluctant to redeem customers’ reward points so that they can earn small amounts of money that would otherwise have been saved by coupons and points. It may not look like much from the point of view of one customer, but it adds up in the long run,” she states. Kundaikar had to take the matter up to the store’s manager to get the reward points redeemed.
During its investigation for this story, TG Life also found many people who were totally unaware of reward points, and did not take the time to hunt the best of the deals. “Shopping has become quite complicated over the years, and at my age, one does not have the patience and energy to search and apply the best coupons,” says Balkrishna Desai, a businessman from Ponda who is now in his 60s. “I just ignore everything and make a straight purchase. I do not mind shelling out a few extra bucks to avoid these time-consuming navigations needed to avail of offers.” he adds.
He keeps shopping frequently and is aware that he is accumulating reward points by using his debit card, but does not care to check or utilise these points. There are many who are not even aware of this system.
As the world comes closer, businesses are becoming increasingly competitive and aggressive at trying to lure customers into shopping. Additionally, technology has also changed shopping experience in many ways.
Do reward points and other deals help us or not, is a matter of debate, but it must be conceded that shopping today is not a simple affair, but needs a level of wisdom and patience that involves doing more than just brutal haggling with your local vendor.
