Ordinary Nothing

With passover approaching, as with a few more of the main holidays, many companies and businesses feel the need to get a holiday gift to their employees (That’s not an altruistic feeling, in particular. It’s so ingrained that people deserve it, that companies will face serious disaffection and disgruntlement if they won’t do it. Cheaper to get the gifts, and retain the good feelings of the employees. Some places, it may even be in the contract).

And a gift which is becoming more and more popular is a multi-coupon, that’s worth a certain amount of money in a large amount of store networks - clothing, music, books, toys, and supermarkets. Actually, there are people using the opportunity to buy these things privately, since if you buy at the included stores anyway, you save money. the coupon price is less than it’s value in the store (not that big a problem for stores, they give up a little of their mark-up for a chance of getting more customers. If they didn’t think it was worth it, they wouldn’t do it).

Now, in most places, it’s easy. If the coupon has a stated value of 100 ILS, then you can buy 100 ILS worth of goods in it. Simple enough. But for a long time some of the large clothing stores, and supermarket network, accept these coupons for a reduced value, so the same coupon will be worth, for example, 95 ILS there. These are probably the places that get lots of traffic anyway, so they assume nearly all shoppers will be regular one that take advantage of the coupons, rather than new customers that wouldn’t have bought anything otherwise.

Personally, I found this irking enough that I wouldn’t go there with the coupon out of principal. It feels too much like being cheated out of money.

And now, one of the supermarket chains had these radio commercials that I’ve been hearing over the last few days. And it’s a very sad state of affairs that this sort of thing is considered by their PR flacks to be an advantage worth publishing. It’s even sadder that many people may actually see this as the special discount offer that those commercial presents.

See, what they claim is that, very special offer, the coupons will be worth their stated value in their store. Yes, you read that right, this amazing and unbelievable offer, you could buy things in the sum stated on the coupon as it’s value. Now is that the best deal you’ve heard of in a long time, or what?

I had some purchases in the UK version of Amazon in the past. So they’re sending me (with permission, this isn’t the problem here) the occasional promotional emails about new releases and special discounts.

The latest such message contained some interesting offers. Like:

The 4 DVDs for GBP 20 promotion applies to listed titles only, which are subject to change and availability. DVDs may be purchased individually for GBP 4.97.

Now, let me run this by you again. You can purchase, in a special promotion price, a pack of four DVDs, for a total of 20 GBP. Do the math, it comes to 5 GBP each. Or, you could forgo the special offer, and buy them individually, in which case they will cost 4.97 GBP each. Which is less. So for example, if you really want four, you’re better off getting them as four individuals instead of using the special promotion. Brilliant offer, isn’t it?

But wait, there’s more:

The 3 paperbacks for GBP 12 promotion applies to listed titles only, which are subject to change and availability. Books in this promotion may be purchased individually for GBP 3.99.

Yes, that’s almost exactly the same thing. It’s not as bad here as in the previous case, but you’re still either better off, or the same, buying them individually instead of in the special offer pack. Would it have really hurt them to say that each one is 4 GBP and be done with it, without any special offers?