Opinion : You may have been loyal to the supermarket but are they loyal to you now?

The shopping scene of today is very different from that of yesteryear.

Years ago shoppers went to their local shopkeeper for essential items. The baker, butcher, grocer, green grocer, etc…. all knew their customers and looked after them.

My good self remembers when, during the shortages of the 1970’s, your humble servant went with my father to a local bakers to get bread.

There was a long queue outside waiting for the public facing shop part of the bakery to open, however my father had been a customer for years and knew the owner and staff in the bakehouse. As soon as the staff saw my father arrive they shepherded him around the back of the premises, took his shopping bag and handed it back to him full with his regular order of bread.

In the good old days if a customer had been loyal to the shopkeeper then, during times of trouble, the shopkeeper made sure their customers didn’t go hungry.

Move forward to the modern day and many of the large supermarkets have introduced loyalty type cards to entice us to give their our custom through reward point and offers.

My good self has loyalty cards with two of the main supermarkets and frequents both stores regularly.

You can imagine how disappointed my good self was a couple of days ago when yours truly decided to register for a major supermarket’s ‘home delivery’ service only for a message to appear that told me the shop was not taking on any new on-line customers due to high demand.

What about my loyalty to the store over the years? Surely the supermarkets should be giving priority to their regular customers, like me, just as the shops keepers of yesteryear did?

In my opinion all those with active supermarket loyalty cards should be given preferential treatment and be allowed to register with the respective supermarkets.

Surely the loyalty card number should be the first piece of information requested in the on-line registration process rather than an e-mail address?

What’s more, in my view, the supermarkets regular customers should be given priority for home deliveries.

Surely the turning away of regular customers at their time of need is going to be a major public relations disaster for many of the major stores?

Is it any wonder the shelves are empty and there’s chaos on the shop floor? What shop is so short minded that they end up turning away their most loyal customers through what appears to be a ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude towards their regular shoppers?

When all this Corona-craziness is over there’s no way my good self is going to remain loyal to the supermarket in question. At my time of need they didn’t care about me so why should my good self care about them?

What do you think?

My blogs are published regularly here on the WycombeToday.com website.

You can also follow me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ivor.wycombe or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Ivor_Wycombe.