Let them Eat Cake!

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We shop for our groceries at two different stores and are members of both shopping reward programs. Both stores know a fair amount of information about my family including items regularly purchased and birthdays; so with my son Siddharth turning 16 last week, we received an email from both places wishing him a great day. One of the stores sent a $10 coupon from the bakery; to access you went online to a specialized landing page, picked out a coupon resembling a ten dollar bill and had the option to include your name.

I visited the store over the weekend and among other things picked up a Double Chocolate Fudge Cake from the bakery, I asked the folks to personalize it with Happy Birthday Siddharth – but they refused! Their rationale was that the cake was a dessert cake, not an occasion cake. I tried to explain that the cake was huge – with lots of writing space and something my son really liked. I spoke to the supervisor, still no personalization. I event went to the store manager who apologized and walked over to the baking section – they refused her as well. They were under instructions by their section manager to make no exceptions.

I refused to buy the cake and went over to the second grocery store – I picked up the same flavor cake that they personalized and even gave me a free cupcake which they personalized too.
The first store has a phenomenal email program, is closer and has better prices. The second store does okay via email, is a bit further from home and isn’t as competitive – despite the differences, where do you think I am going to shop more often?

As far as the coupon, I put mailed it to the email marketing manager with a note about this post… I wonder if I will ever hear back.