Most supermarkets in Canada are offering their own rebate program for the registered customers. We can get a shopping card in exchange for giving our private information such as our name, address and phone number to the shop. We can get some rebates and points every time we shop with the card. You might be happy when you get a great rebate with the card, but I think the shops get more value whenever you do shopping with it. They can get your shopping information in details. They know what time on what day of the week you often shop. They also know what brand of whichever items you like. By gathering and analyzing all the customer's shopping information, they can make a good plan about how many of which items they should purchase and lay in stock. I found today that my shopping points for last year was more than one thousand. It means that I spent more than one thousand dollars in the supermarket last year. However, the points cannot be used because there is no present item which can be exchanged with only one thousand points. I can't help feeling they are stingy. The profits of the shopping cards are mainly for the shops themselves and not returned to us customers enough.
Haven't you ever seen a Safeway's gas station in Vancouver? They provide you some cents cash back per gallon (liter).
Posted by: Sen | March 04, 2007 at 03:37 PM
Thanks for the information. I have never seen Safeway's gas station in Vancouver. I'll try to find it next time.
Posted by: mochi | March 04, 2007 at 04:29 PM