I was reading the back of my Shaw’s super special customer card this morning. I noticed it said that anyone could drop it in any mailbox and postage would be guaranteed. I started thinking about just how many people had one of these little cards. You know the card I am talking about the one that will give you a break on an already overpriced article of food…
Whatever happened to just charging people the actual cost of something? What is with all of the demographics, advertising and the like? Why do I have to be on guard to not get ripped off by everyone out there? Well that is another story totally and you know what I choose to not be on guard. If someone is out there to rip me off and I miss it, well, it is their shit and I won’t have to pay for their consequences…
Back to the situation at hand-the little cards. So lets say a million or so people have one of these little cards and postage for each ounce is $0.42, but the price for a postcard is $0.27. Given these things are a bit smaller than a postcard lets calculate the rate based off of $0.27.
Google calculator reports
twenty-seven U.S. cents times one million = 270 000 U.S. dollars
WOW! Now lets update the calculation since each person is given more than one card at the time of sign-up (two I think). So that means if everyone just sent back one of their cards it would cost the company advertising “Postage is guaranteed” roughly half a million dollars. Even if the price for postage was half of half of the estimate it is still a good chunk of money that would come directly out of all of the profits companies like Shaw’s are stealing from its customers.
It is all in the details…not sure why on earth someone let that slip through the cracks. Why pay postage on something that is completely meaningless and arbitrary? All you have to do is walk in give them some information (which they probably resell) and you get your cards and subsequently pay inflated prices on already inflated merchandise and THINK you are actually getting a deal!
We are all suckers, but we do have a voice drop your silly cards in a mailbox near you…