The Coles school sports promotion is a rip-off in my view. According to a recent report in The Australian (Sept. 5 pg 8), shoppers need to spend $700 to earn enough points for a school to get a $3 (RRP) skipping rope.
I’d have parents from a nearby school spending less than $500 in one of my newsagencies in a year yet I happily give them products worth $50 for free when they ask. This makes my small newsagency more valuable to the school than Coles. Plus I don’t demand they shop with me. I want that to occur naturally as it is more likely to stick if it does.
Indeed in each of my newsagencies we give a significantly higher percentage of revenue to community groups than Coles appears to with this promotion.
Why should I be surprised that small businesses do more for local schools and clubs than one of our giant supermarkets? I’m not. I think that the Coles campaign in purely profit driven and 100% cynical. It sucks that shoppers buy in and think good on your Coles for doing this.
I don’t spend any money advertising the $50 I give the school either. It frustrates me the tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars is being spent advertising the promotion. This should be given to the schools and not media outlets. Coles should rely on word of mouth – if they were serious about helping as much as possible.
And you didn’t already know this, no different to the shopping bags at Officeworks. It is a money making venture, as are our offers to our customers to encourage repeat custom. The trick is who does it better, are any ethical?
Perhaps like Officeworks we should advise all new teachers that we give them 10 % discount on educational products. New just our of Uni teachers then think Officeworks is the best place to shop. My son told me that is what his mate thought until he advised him that officeworks is much dearer than his mums newsagent. We need to let them know that we are the best. I find it hard to promote this even though I offer this. Many of our teachers never enter the door of the shop. I supply a good % of back to school books and sponser speach night etc yet the school ordered their student diaries from Office works last year. I let them know I cold have supplied them cheaper and will wait to see if we get the order this year. I am lucky that I don’t have Cole nearer than 300k. I have not seen the advertising but one of our little country schools did very well by advertising for shopper dockets to be sent to them for one promotions and they won a school bus so it can work and the parents don’t have to be the ones shopping there.