Postcards from Perkistan

Heya!
Graham here. It’s tough to find a great sale in the 6 weeks leading up to Christmas, but we’ve found some great loyalty deals that will help you save on some great gift ideas. We’re going to be updating the blog when new cool deals come out.

My mum always loves a good read, if yours does too keep your eye on the Borders Shortlist and Angus & Robertson A&R Rewards. A&R Rewards you need to make a purchase before you can become a member. If you aren’t already then you’re probably better off signing up for the Borders Shortlist. Free, online registration and they send an email once a month (usually in the third/fourth week). Discounts are consistently 20-30% off. This week’s offer is 25% off one non-fiction book.

Candles are also a great idea, and we’ve got another free email signup for you. This one’s with Dusk, pretty much the only decent candle store if you ask me. Go to their website and signup for the dusk candle club. Immediately after joining you’ll receive a 10% off voucher for your first ONLINE order. So get your shopping done early and snag a great bargain: Sign up now

It’s tough to find dad a present that isn’t socks or jocks, or just the same old thing that you get him every year. Give him some excitement this year by getting him a RedBalloon adventure. They’re normally pretty costly, so you’ll have no problems saving on this one. Use your Presidential Card to make the purchase and you’ll receive a $30 discount on any purchase of $129 or more. Nice! Don’t forget to enter your voucher code at the checkout. All the details. The same discount is applied for MBF’s In2Life program.

For all your christmas shopping you can save 5% with your Presidential Card or QRI Lifestyle card by pre-purchasing gift cards. What’s also kinda cool (I asked FlyBuys but they didn’t get back to me) is that you can still earn QANTAS Frequent Flyer points when you make your purchase with a WISH gift card at Woolworths. Sweet, huh?

If you’re in to the hamper market, let’s face it… we all are, you can usually save 10% by ordering through your motor club or by using your credit card. At the bare minimum you’re gonna get some bonus points for it. Confirmed discounts are available through RACQ (usually the other big motor clubs are reciprocal so be sure to check out RACV, NRMA, RACT, RAC, and AANT), ANZ Frequent Flyer Credit Card, Westpac Instant Offers, ANZ Rewards Credit Card, St. George Instant Benefits, Bank of Queensland Q-Rewards.

You can also save up to 20% on Hampers with a National Pharmacies Membership. Simply view the Christmas Catalogue.

Shopping for kid’s toys is always a bit of a hard one to find discounts on. Save 20% by buying online with your Presidential Card at GR8 Toys. Save 10% at Entropy using your QRI Lifestyle card. Sign up to the Australian Geographic Newsletter and receive an in-store coupon. We’ll try to nut this one out and bring you some more great bargains from the free programs out there

Decorations: Keep an eye out for great offers from Myer and David Jones in their monthly instant offers. Failing that you’ve got National Pharmacies with some great low-cost and discounted decoration options that are up to 20% off.

Christmas Entertainment: Reading Reel Club, Hoyts Movie Club, Cine Buzz weekly emails include an exclusive member offer for a discounted movie.
Christmas Entertainment: AMF Bowling AMF Roller club - 10% off everything. They usually include discounted school holiday offers, it’s free to join. Thursday night is cheap bowling night, too

We’ll be sure to add the latest benefits here as they come… Also, you can do your own search from our home page: Search Now!
-Me

One of the most exciting parts of our launch was being asked by A Current Affair to go on a spending spree to show just how much you can save with Loyalty Cards.

At first even we were a little dubious - our take on loyalty is that it is consistent spending over a period of time that gives maximum benefit, but with full faith in the programs out there we headed into central Sydney to the QVB and went shopping.

The results were pretty extraordinary. With no TV magic (really)!) we saved $187.00 in less than an hour. The brands were Oxford, Esprit, Kathamandu, Krispy Kreme and Wagamama.

Each of these stores had great specials on and all of the goods were things we actually needed (well, I didn’t need that Oxford knit but is was nice).

So overall we were very happy with our little adventure. You can see it here. ACA Shopping Spree

The story on ACA was the most popular of the night, so we were asked back to rank our favourite cards the following week. This is an interesting ask because programs are so different and people find value in different ways, but in the end we applied some key criteria to come up with a list. The criteria (loosely) were:

* Instant Benefits rule over accrual

* Local and multiple redemption locations are good

* No or low fee entry is a bonus

The winning card was Show Your Card and Save which is not only the largest in the world but offers significant discounts at thousands of locations.

Other cards to make it to our final list were FlyBuys, Qantas FF, Woolworths Everyday Rewards, David Jones Amex, ANZ EDine, Krispy Kreme, Myer One, Virgin Velocity and Accor Advantage Plus. You can see our reasoning here.

You can also see the full video here. ACA Best Cards

Though naturally it was exciting to get national TV coverage for Perkler as part of our launch week what was the most exciting was the response. The fact that we were the most popular segment, and that hundreds of thousands of hits to the site resulted proved for us that there are plenty of people out there trying to use loyalty better!

From the previous blog post I mentioned that the NAB Gold Rewards program has turned into two different cards (linked to the one account), the NAB Qantas Gold Visa (or MasterCard), and the NAB Qantas Gold American Express.

David Jones has just released (2/3/2009) a David Jones American Express card where you can redeem points earned for ANY travel (anything that a travel agent can book can be purchased with their voucher. Booked through AmEx), including Qantas flights.

Here we’ll compare the earning and burning options of the NAB Qantas Gold American Express ($145.50 annual fee) and the David Jones American Express ($99 annual fee) cards.

Shopping In-Store:

DJs: 2 points per dollar, don’t expire, no cap
NAB (in-store means Qantas): 3 points per 2 dollars for the first $3,000 per month; 2 points per 2 dollars for $3,001 to $10,000; Nothing over $10,000.

We’ll assume that you always earn 3 points per 2 dollars for the NAB card as that is it’s highest points-earning capability.

DJs $100 Gift Card: 13,300 points. At 2 points per dollar that is $6,500 to get $100 back.
NAB $100 Myer Card: 13,500 points. At 3 points per 2 dollars that is $9,000 to get $100 back.

DJs $100 Travel Voucher (includes Qantas): 15,000 points. At 2 points per dollar that is $7,500 to get $100 of travel.
For NAB they don’t have a specific dollar amount to redeem on travel, so let’s take a domestic flight from Sydney to Coffs Harbour. 1 “zone”, 275 miles, from $104 economy class.
Sydney - Coffs ($104): 8,000 points + 3,000 points for taxes = 11,000 points. At 3 points per 2 dollars that is $7,334 to get $104 of travel.

In-Store Conclusion: DJs has a HUGE advantage if you plan on redeeming your points for a shopping voucher. NAB Qantas Gold has a slight (2.26%) advantage if you plan on redeeming your points for travel with Qantas.

Shopping Everywhere Else

DJs: 1.5 points per dollar, don’t expire, no cap
NAB: 2 points per 2 dollars for the first $3,000 each month; 1 point per 2 dollars for $3,001 to $10,000; Nothing over $10,000.

We’ll assume you always earn 2 points per 2 dollars with the NAB card as that is it’s highest points-earning capability.

DJs $100 Gift Card: 13,300 points. At 1.5 points per dollar that is $8,867 to get $100 back.
NAB $100 Myer Card: 13,500 points. At 2 points per 2 dollars that is $13,500 to get $100 back.

DJs $100 Travel Voucher (Includes Qantas): 15,000 points. At 1.5 points per dollar that is $10,000 to get $100 of travel.
Using the same Qantas flight from Sydney to Coffs:
Sydney - Coffs ($104): 11,000 points. At 2 points per 2 dollars that is $11,000 to get $104 of travel.

Everywhere else conclusion: DJs extends it’s advantage over the NAB card when redeeming your points for a shopping voucher. NAB Qantas Gold loses it’s slight advantage and DJs gains the slight advantage (10% now though! 12.26% change…) when redeeming your points for travel with Qantas.

Of course you may need to consider your shopping habits and your financial needs when choosing a credit card that is right for you and this is a mere glimpse of what both programs have to offer.

Here at Perkler we’ve just embarked on an eye opening campaign. Until now we have focussed our efforts on letting people manage their entire wallet in one virtual place.

In this new campaign we are responding to the current economic climate, and the need for people to get value from their loyalty programs immediately, by isolating the best possible loyalty perks on a product by product or brand by brand basis.

Our first port of call has been cosmetics. We figure make-up is the kind of thing people can still think about making small purchases on and get a ‘luxury’ item despite not being so flush right now. Having said that, Graham our database and community guy has been seen to weep as he has entered the RRP for some of these products!!!

You can see what we’ve found for cosmetics here - an interesting list that shows the big programs as well as the small have a lot to offer if you know where to find it. We’ve had LOTS of people looking for Napoleon Perdis and The Body Shop - very different brands in lots of ways.

Next cab off the ranks is likely to be cameras - always a really interesting product segment. But it could just as easily be a brand like Apple or an activity like travel.

So what would you choose - what product or brand or activity do you think rewards would make you purchase in the current climate? Be interesting to see the responses.

Justin

@JustinBarrie  on twitter

One of the things we want to do at Perkler (and Adam is working hard to implement) is to not only allow you to search across your loyalty portfolio in one place, but receive special offers or discounts, on top of the current loyalty offering, to get you in the store.

As we build relationships with retailers we’ll be pushing this as an opportunity for them and consumers and will offer coupons for use on the phone and web to facilitate this.

It’s a good space to be in as belts tighten and interestingly the idea is gaining traction in markets that you wouldn’t expect.

The US is traditionally big into coupons - thanks to green stamps and the Great Depression there is a strong culture of coupon use. The UK on the other hand has has a good tradition of coupons, but don’t tend to attack them with the same veracity. Until now!

New Media Age out of the UK reports today  (you’ll need to register with NMA to see the whole article) that searching online for coupons is up 133% in the past year (my guess is that demand and searching will double again in the current climate in just a few months). At the same time Google is talking about the move to mobile advertising.

Perkler - mobile based search results linked to an additional discount coupon AS WELL as your current entitlements is looking pretty good in this space.

Justin

Got a nice post from Tim Winship today about services that let people know when award seats come up in frequent flyer programs. Tim is spot on when he asks the question “why don’t the programs do this directly?”.

He probably knows the answer as he has worked in and around travel and loyalty for 20 years, but if he’s asking then seems like they probably should!

At Perkler we ask a different question. Why sit around waiting for a reward seat when the programs offer so many other options?

Yes - I understand that there are a LOT of people out there who can use the flights and want to invest the time to try and get the award, good luck to them. But for the vast majority of consumers out there, instead of waiting for the award, get a retail reward.

Experiences, home appliances, discounts at retailers and gift vouchers are all available from these programs. With Christmas coming up you can use Perkler to help you find out about potential presents for people you love (and even yourself).

Redeeming these rewards isn’t always the most efficient use of points (Dan’s post yesterday highlighted how different programs offer different value) but if you aren’t using them anyway - the current economic climate is exactly the rainy day you’ve been looking for.

So next time you hear someone moaning about their frequent flyer program and how they can’t get a seat. Send them to Perkler and tell them to look for the reward and forget the award (that’s nice, we should trade mark it!).

Justin

Fired up the home computer this morning and noticed an email from Everyday Rewards - the Woolworths fuels rewards scheme. My wife joined up to ensure we got the best out of our shopping and boy does it make a big difference not having all of those paper vouchers hanging around.

Fill 'er Up!

Anyway, the email this morning had the title - ‘Exclusive 10c Fuel Saving for You’. For her, for Ele? Was this a Tesco moment where perks were actually starting to get personalised from one of Australia’s big players?

I scrolled down and got even more excited. The offer was an additional 10 cents discount on fuel if we bought some frozen chicken products. Sounds dull, but with a four year old who has gone from eat anything to eating only white and yellow things, Baiada Chicken Nuggets have become an essential freezer item.

So they offered us an extra fuel discount if we bought more of a product that we like and regularly buy at their outlets - perk heaven!

Not quite.

I ran up the hall and delivered Ele’s coffee to her in bed (as any loving husband would - right) and asked her about the email. “Just a coincidence” was the response. “Last week they sent one and the offer was based on buying margarine”. 

Now I don’t think I’ve bought or had margarine in my house since I lived with Mum and Dad almost 20 years ago.

So, it wasn’t a message based on Ele’s preferences, just a random product selection that suited us. We’ll get the offer but hope they learn more about us, and I’m sure if we had their credit card they would. But with a magnetic strip rewards card that isn’t really going to happen at the moment.

Unless of course they connect with Perkler members and then they can learn from them without even having to upgrade their card technology or chase people onto credit programs at ‘crunch time’

Regardless of the (slightly) missed opportunity we are really enjoying and using the Everyday Rewards - a big improvement on the paper vouchers. 

Justin

USA Today reports that Target and Nordstrom are seeing more and more delinquencies on credit card payments on branded credit cards. The issue of credit and the capacity to pay is written about much more eloquently in the blogoshpere, particularly by people like Mark Cuban (who everyone at Perkler loves to read, but we are Pistons fans, not Mavs…)

Writes good finance blog, owns wrong team ;)

What we do know about here though is how these cards relate to us, the consumer, and our loyalty.

These branded credit cards always come attached to loyalty or rewards programs and have been a good way for retailers to encourage loyalty purchases and learn a lot about their customers through data mining (not to mention making good money through the financial model). For the consumer good, disciplined credit card use can get you some pretty good deals.

But if the current circumstances do change credit card use what’s left behind? The rewards program. We believe that now is EXACTLY the time when retailers big and small should be doing what they have been promising for years. Rewarding loyal customers.

Some do it properly, others let their programs turn into mere discount agreements that neither targets loyal customers or rewards them. Now you can build big databases that tell you a lot about people, or you can join in a community where people willingly share what they think, provide feedback and rate their programs against others.

That’s what Perkler promises. When you become a member you tell us where you are, what you have in your loyalty wallet and what your other likes and loves are.

Discipline = Reward

Eventually, rather than only being a target for a credit card relationship, you should get a message from Nordstrom through Perkler telling you that the perfume you love, is cheaper today, just for you and because you are loyal. That’s a reward and for retailers all it takes is interaction with us, the community.

If you get this because you are have a credit card as well - bonus.

cheers

Justin (more…)

The NRF has sent a link today to a Washington Post story about tapping into shoppers’ psyche to overcome the retail drop-off this holiday season.

Now, as a consumer (and a person) I always laugh at how ‘understanding consumers’ or ‘tapping into thought patterns’ need to be an actual activity for some large organisations - the best ones just get it, think it and act it all of the time.

A Loyalty Tea Party anyone?

Which is why I like the example in the story about Talbots - a womenswear chain. They have introduced a really neat loyalty perk. Loyal customers get the store for a party. Talbots supply the essentials (food,drink and clothing range) the loyal customer acts as hostess and brings a bunch of friends along.

Great way to engage, great perk Talbots!

I’d love to have a tea party at T2 here in Canberra!

When courageous companies come up with interesting perks like this, you can rest assured we will be highlighting them to their members on Perkler but also letting everyone else know that this retailer is really looking out for consumers - that’s the kind of news we want to send around the Perkler community.

Justin

I was reading Wise Marketer this morning, a website for loyalty marketing professionals. They quoted some news from travel site kayak.com:

Kayak.com has issued a number of tips for prospective travellers, one of which is to simply: “Forget customer loyalty. Frequent flyer miles aren’t as valuable as they used to be, so book with another carrier if it means a deal”.

Now, the argument around the value of frequent flyer programs and points and accessibility is one that is covered in great depth and by extremely knowledgeable and passionate people out there in the webisphere. And they take their points very very seriously, so I’m not going to get into a stoush with them.

Miles, miles everywhere...

What the kayak research shows is that obtaining value from these programs when you are chasing their core reward (in this case flights) is hard. What they don’t highlight is that if using those points for a trip is so hard, you should look to burn them on the thousands of other retail and merchandise items you can get.

Sit on points hoping to get a reward, or (like our private beta tester Wayne) find the coffee machine of your dreams in the Perkolator™ and use those flying points on instant satisfaction.

And that’s where we come in. Instead to telling people how ‘broken’ loyalty is, we enable consumers to find their favourite brands and activities in locations near to them so they can utilise the programs in a tailored and personal way. And rather than focus on the big points programs we would much rather do this in retail programs are based on the brands people love.

Retail programs are (on the whole) simple. Spend in a store or from a favourite brand and you get rewards. Sure some of the rewards on offer seem minuscule compared to the purchase price but there are plenty of great programs, and if you are going to shop there anyway…

We will also be working hard at Perkler to tell retailers what their consumers want - we hope they will take advantage of the community and target people for extra and special perks. We are on the lookout for these kind of retailers right now and together we know we can make retail loyalty even better.

As a wise man (not wise marketer) once said “the perks are out there…”

Have a good weekend everyone

Justin