Shopping bargains?

<Photo of spring strawberries in August in France'>Do you collect stamps at supermarkets? The ones that give you a discount to some big brand name as long as you’ve spent hundreds at the supermarket offering the great deal?

I remember my mum collecting stamps for a new set of posh crockery. We shifted our old seventies brown plates and bowls to the back of the cupboard and moved into the eighties with beige, patterned crockery. It took her months to save those stamps so that she could buy the full set, and I’m pretty sure she had to spend thousands of Australian dollars at that supermarket.

Things aren’t that different here in France. There’s always some sticker on offer at most supermarkets. Pictured is the current offer for Pyrex at Carrefour. The receipt shows how many stickers the check-out chick is due to dole out to each customer. You can see that I was supposed to receive 26. How many did I get?

210.

I was given 210 stickers. That’s more than the Pyrex sticker book can even hold!

This happens every time I nod for the stickers on offer, so it makes me wonder if these deals are really fooling anyone into believing they’re getting a bargain. On one hand, I don’t have to spend all my money at Carrefour to benefit from their special offers. On the other hand, if I were to buy any of these Pyrex dishes, I’d be spending additional money at Carrefour anyway, so do they really care if the stickers are thrown en masse to all their customers?

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About

I'm a technical author, journalist and writer from Australia who has been living in Europe since 2000 and exploring the world from there. My passions are writing, snow sports and travel.

1 Comment on “Shopping bargains?

  1. I have no idea how these loyalty cards/offers work. I use mainly EleClerc and get points – sometimes a cash back – but there is a derth of anything showing on the bill during the holiday two months, as if the spoils would go to visitors rather than the locals ? Anyway, I’m off to buy the dog bicuits that are ‘on offer’ for two weeks.