From The Past: July 27, 2005

This is my key ring:

What I want you to see is how many little “savings cards” I have attached to the key ring. I have one for Hallmark, CVS, Piercing Pagoda, PetSmart, Kroger, and The Clark County Public Library. You can sort of see a touch of blue on the end – that is a small picture of Ashley. The photography companies are now putting school pictures on these tabs so you can attach them to your key ring. I do like the picture and think it’s cute, the others are getting out of hand though. I have six savings cards on my key ring and only seven keys! I am certain there will come a time that I have more cards than keys. Kroger started this whole fad and they should be ashamed. We used to get the sale prices just for shopping there. Now you have to have the card or you pay almost double. It’s ridiculous! This is also another way for them to track everything about us. They know what we’re buying and when we’re buying it.

I also have cards like these:

I have one for a restaurant and movie theatre. These cards are different in that, when I use them, I get points toward free stuff.

There are other ways of rewarding frequent visits such as punch cards or stamp cards. They look like this:

By using a special punch hole or stamp on these cards each time I purchase something, they are rewarding me; rewarding without tracking my exact likes and dislikes and the exact date I was there. This is the nicer way of rewarding customers.