Potential Chocolate Promo Problems (renamed)

[harriet loeyr]

This all seems ridiculous to me. Shoppers has ordered X number of chocolate bars to sell, and so for every 4 sold they KNOW they will be giving away 8000 points! Are they losing money, I don't know, this is a promotion and so they should KNOW exactly how many points will be "given" away to their valued customers, so why talk about this as a glitch? They should have EXPECTED to sell this many bars. Were they hoping NOT to sell them?

The problem of course is that they put no limit on the number sold per customer and people are complaining they cant' find any, well Shoppers should have thought of that before they started this promotion. (Hoarding/making money through points is part of human nature.)

The early bird gets the worm.

[tjthemanto]

I am the one who had the bars taken out of her hands.....I have looked at numerous stores just to get my hands on 8000 points and was unable to until this morning when I arrived at the store when they opened. And I was in the middle of picking out the flavors that I wanted, when the manager came and told me that he was not able to sell them. I have received an email from Shoppers indicating that they are investigating this.

AND I am not a hoarder....nor am I cleaning the shelves. I only wanted 8 bars and haven't been able to get any yet.

That's nuts !

They can't prevent you from buying 8 ..they have the right to reserve quantities , but 8 is an extremely reasonable amount , not sure why they didn't let you buy them.

Looks like the crazies and hoarders unfortunately spoiled it for you and the SDM store is taking it out on you , due to them

[SimplifiedMommyTips]

I was at SDM downtown this morning and they told me the same thing that HO might take points away because the promo was a typo error instead of 800 point it came it to be 8000 point and they have a limit of 4 bars per day per customer now, I told the cashier that it is not customers fault that they made an error so if they will be taking away points then consumer will definitely complain about it and it can be taken in higher level as they do not honor their written promotion. I purchased 20 bars yesterday and this morning 4 bars and still got the points. I don't know if they are just saying does to keep customer from not buying..

[pattiprops]

I think it is all phony. Too many opportunities to correct the points and they never noticed (flyer, online, prictags). They have had ample time to do any of the following..... ALL stores would probably have received an urgent memo telling them to post signs with limits or explaining the pointserror, just like notices put with flyers when there is a mistake on a price that was printed. They also would have taken out the possibility of getting points through their pos system.

[Peachykeen2007]

I find this funny, sorry to say but I bought 4 chocolate bars today and got the 8000 bonus points

All tags and displays of the Cadbury chocolate bars still say 8000 BP when you buy 4 here!

Shopper's CANNOT take points away and it was not a GLITCH - they advertised it, I believe they just didn't think that so many people would take advantage of it on a redemption weekend!

Both the store & Head office both said today to me that this promo was a " Error " " Huge Glitch ". If you doubt what I am saving then perhaps you should call into head office or your local shoppers for yourself.

Yes and it was Still advertised on Shoppers offical website as of 7:30 this morning. I informed bot the store & head office of this. Inaddition all the " 8000 points" tags were also removed from the top left hand side of the price tags.

I understand that nothing can be done at the store level. that was not my point. my point is that since shoppers head office is unclear if points will be taken back, people might express thier upset so that head office will hear from the stores how unhappy customers will be. I never said they were definatley going to take back points, i said they may, as head office told me they did not know what was going to happen with the points.

No they have not stopped this promotion due to anyone being greedy. They said it has been stopped due to a Huge Glitch. But don't take my word for it, just pick up your phone and give them a call. If they tell you anything different than they told me, perhaps you could be kind enough to share it with us.

I believe that since this was their error, they should absorb the consequences of it not the customers.

[nothingsweeterthanadeal]

i want my chocolate and i want my points, im getting more , more i say lol, and then i will be redeeming before they can take them away,,i love sdm

[peachies]

It's not all a mistake...thats a huge mistake to make for such a huge company. They had to make and print tags, advertising, marketing, websites, flyers etc etc..these are done by many many people..you can't tell me that this many people made the same mistake...if so they are a bunch of dummies. I don't know whats going on but its getting crazy and someone from SDM needs to set the record straight and not the person from the facebook page.

[rivrside]

I think I'm going to have to buy a shovel with my bonus points (but then again I've never seen them at SDM...LOL!) because its getting pretty deep and I have to get out to buy some more chocolate!

I believe we are seeing one of a few things or possibly a combination of a couple.... either rogue managers/etc as mentioned earlier in this post (same thing seen at some WM, NF, etc. when it comes to coupons, PMing, etc), Great Publicity for SDM 50th with all of the extra attention/panic and/or some die hard point seekers that want to create panic so that more people stop buying so there's more around for them to snatch!

I can only base my opinion on the actual facts that I see now:

(1) Still no problem buying and/or getting points in this area, mind you some stores are only putting one or two bars out at a time just so the display isn't completely empty

(2) If this was truely a typeo and/or a mistake with the display cards, promo, etc....why haven't they changed the details on their website? It would take one of their tech guys or the company that manages their website all of a few minutes with about a dozen or so keystrokes... Still says 8000 points (5 minutes ago)

(3) Why are the bars offered in the new flyer at an even better deal?

Just my opinion....as mentioned ...time to go get more chocolate!

[The__Rock]

I actually CALLED head office last Friday (before the sale actually started, but it was on their page), and the person had to put me on hold to confirm, and came back saying "yes 8000 pts, etc etc". There is no way it was a typo....no way people at marketing, people making the website, people answering the phones, people putting the stickers up, etc, wouldn't have caught this mistake. If this is the case, and there was no deal with Kraft for marketing, and if it fact Shoppers lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, I'll gladly offer my services to Shoppers to look for "mistakes" in their promo for $100,000 a year.

[FallenPixels]

I chatted with my fave sdm manager today, no choc there but she said 8000 is correct, the glitch was that it was supposed to be one per transaction (which would have calmed most of the bonus redemptions).

I got some elsewhere, limit of 8, did separate transactions just in case

[rivrside]

This all seems ridiculous to me. Shoppers has ordered X number of chocolate bars to sell, and so for every 4 sold they KNOW they will be giving away 8000 points! Are they losing money, I don't know, this is a promotion and so they should KNOW exactly how many points will be "given" away to their valued customers, so why talk about this as a glitch? They should have EXPECTED to sell this many bars. Were they hoping NOT to sell them?

The problem of course is that they put no limit on the number sold per customer and people are complaining they cant' find any, well Shoppers should have thought of that before they started this promotion. (Hoarding/making money through points is part of human nature.)

The early bird gets the worm.

I agree fully! Isn't this a great way to get customers, who are seeking the chocolate deal to go to other stores rather than just their local. I'm sure most stores have seen an increase in customers entering their stores. Whether they spend any money may be questionable but once you have the points, is SDM the only place you can spend them? I'm not 100% sure because this is all new to me but I think it is..... Just think, this coming week we'll all be going through the exact same motions and comments with Ritz! I'm sure Cadbury chocolate has been lips of many this week and Ritz and Cadbury's will be will have similar attention this coming week. That combined with the fact it's all happening at SDM makes it that much more special....How many millions do large corporations spend to get publicity like this? Who needs to spend millions at the Super Bowl.... Just mention a few extra SDM points and the word will spread like wild fire!

[Valerey]

As i mentioned before, unless the entire marketing department at shoppers do not understand their program and erroneously came up with this promo, in which case, they should all be fired, I see this as marketing by Kraft and Shoppers. It is a "Kraft promotion" The 8000 bonus points are on "Kraft" products. Shoppers has no loyalty to Kraft in which they just decided for fun they would promote Kraft products. Kraft and Shoppers have worked something out.

Now regarding the promotion and the bonus redemption on the weekend, even without this bonus redemption, on $170 of regular redemption, one is still receiving 168,000 points on a 95,000 redemption. Again, people at Shoppers MUST surely know the value of their point system. The most value the points have ever had on any super or mega redemption promos has been about $2.50 per 1000 points at maximum redemption. Surely the people in the marketing, pricing, and sales departments must be aware of this and factor this in when marking up their products. There is a reason why most products are marked up at least 10-30% than a Walmart or No Frills, its because it needs to take into account the value of the points. There is NO WAY Shoppers would hold a promotion where you were getting 8000 points by spending $8 on chocolate. Even at a full price of $2.99, that still comes out to $12 for 8000 points. At $2.50 per 1000 points, you are still getting $20 of points for $12. Now regarding setting limits or people buying a lot - regardless of who buys how many, with a promo like this, the bars are going to be flying off the shelf. Whether 10 people buy 4 bars each, or 1 person buys 40 bars, the bars are going to get bought out, and again, at 8000 points per 4 bars, 1 person is going to get 80,000 points or 10 people are going to get 8,000 points each. The only difference is who is buying the chocolate, but it does not impact how much money shoppers receives nor the points they are giving out.

Nicely put!!

[CourtE]

I was at the Shoppers by my place today and got some bars, the customer service manager asked me if "I was getting in on the awesome points deal". When I said yep, and chocolate, I got back a "good girl!" lol

[Miss Molly]

I do believe there was a screw up somewhere, whether it was in the number of points or by not putting a limit on the chocolates. I mentioned this in another post, I went to 1 store and all the stickers were removed and only the regular price was shown, so I took 4 to the cashier and asked if they were still $2 each and 8000 BPs. She put it through and it worked. At a second SDM they had the stickers up with an expiry of September 14th and it wasn't on as many of the bars as there were on the weekend. They also said you had to buy 2 for them to be $2 each, for 1 it was $2.49.

I think that by doing this they are trying to minimize the damage which is only going to happen if they get more stock in.

[torontogal12]

lol! I do think that person on the SDM FB page doesn't know what they're talking about much of the time (they often say "as I understand it" rather than giving anything definitive). But it is much more official than speculation here so I'd rather go with that. Anyway, still avoiding this thread, only reason I came was to check if anyone had replied to me lol

You actually made me chuckle! I think the facebook page is about as accurate as the National Inquirer. Although, I agree with you...Gonna lay off these kinda threads.