Happy birthday, you deserve to feel good! Did you know that you earn bonus points for every kroner you spend? Inger Lise, we miss you! You haven’t bought anything in a while. Hey girl, are you there? Almost every time we go to buy something, the customer clubs are there and entice with good offers and percentages. The contract seems simple, you give away your email address and phone number in exchange for good deals. On average, we Norwegians participate in six customer clubs or bonus programs each. Only 10 percent are completely excluded. When we need something, an offer is good, but often we buy more than we intended. In a survey carried out by YouGov for the Consumer Council, every second Norwegian says that marketing from customer clubs and newsletters has made them buy more than planned. Our high consumption creates huge amounts of waste. Each one of us, for example, throws away an average of over 14 kilograms of textiles each year. Shopping and Sunday blues Did you know that on Sunday evenings at ten o’clock we shop online three times as much as the rest of the week? The stores are of course aware of this, and use it for what it’s worth in their marketing. But it is not just on Sunday evenings that we are peppered with offers and discounts. Among those who are part of customer clubs, one in four states that they receive several e-mails or SMSes every day. Few people initially like advertising. So how is it that so many of us agree to get loads of it straight into our private channels multiple times every single day? It costs money to stand outside Jo, because many of the prices we come across in the online stores mean that we consumers have almost no choice. Sports chains in particular are perfect here. Who is interested in buying a treadmill at full price when you are offered a NOK 10,000 discount as a member? And who buys a bicycle helmet at full price, when there is a member’s discount on as many as 12 different models? But what is the real price here? And how many of us have thousands of pounds to spare just to avoid giving out our email address? In many online stores, it is the membership price that is highlighted, while the original price is written in small print. In the store, they are happy to ask one more time if you are sure that you do not want to register and receive a discount. If you are not interested in becoming part of the good company, you should at least make it known. Time pressure and emotions We humans tend to choose short-term benefits over long-term ones, and several factors that we ourselves have no insight into influence us when we act. The marketers are of course fully aware of this, and use it for all it’s worth. Here are some of the most common tricks the customer clubs use to get you to buy more than you intended: – They tell you it’s now or never: The hourglass is flashing at you, shop at a good price before time runs out! In some cases, the discounts are so large that one can wonder whether the chains have sold the product at the stated pre-sale price. – They don’t go out of their way to encourage you to spend money you don’t have: Buy now, pay later! Or even offers for consumer loans. – They engage in “happy washing”, with promises to brighten your day and make you feel more alive. Do you remember that I mentioned that Sunday evening is the day we shop online the most? Sunday night blues are a thing, and if you’re a little down it can be difficult to resist the promise that a better life is just a purchase away. – They use techniques from the gaming world: For each purchase you can collect points and bonuses, which determine which membership level you end up at. A thousand points sounds like a lot, until you Google yourself until it amounts to NOK 25. And once you have received a discount, you must use it… – They make it personal: They know your name and approach you directly with what appear to be personal offers. A discount coupon for a birthday doesn’t feel like advertising, it’s a gift! But when the gift must be used within 14 days, it is perhaps rather you as a consumer who gives the store something, by shopping more. – They pepper you with news about constantly new collections and trends: There is always something new that you just have to have. When the chains entice us to constantly buy new things, it becomes increasingly difficult to make sustainable choices. It doesn’t help that the new dress is made of organic cotton if 70 percent is polyester and it ends up in the trash when the fashion scene changes. Expensive offers? Eight out of ten want to live more sustainably, and more people than before are struggling to make ends meet. Although discounts and membership offers can be useful, we risk spending more money than we save over time. The problem is that many stores today set up a practice that makes it almost impossible to stay outside the customer clubs. So dear consumer, be aware that here there are strong forces at work to make you buy more than you intended. If you, like me, are tired of being bombarded with advertising in your inbox, then luckily you can always scroll all the way down and find the small print that says “Unsubscribe”. Send us your opinion Want to write? Feel free to contact us at news Ytring with your post. The guidelines can be found here. Published 22.10.2024, at 10.32
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