It seems to be that your purse gets more and more full every time you open it and it’s not money that’s taking up all that space. So what is? Credit cards, debit cards and the number one spot goes to loyalty cards which like credit cards seem to be becoming more and more popular.

With the internet selling trade growing rapidly its customer loyalty that really keeps shops going and any smart company or business offering goods and services should know this. There’s many of ways to keep customers coming back but one of the most effective and popular among customers is to create a loyalty card with appealing benefits to create an edge on competing businesses. It also keeps us, the customers, happy as surely there being things like money back and vouchers off your shopping is a good thing right?

Companies such as Boots, Tesco, Superdrug, Iceland, Game, Sainsburys and Costa just to name a few have clocked on to this fact for some time now and have some very impressive incentives. Boots ‘Advantage card’ for example offers 4 points (the equivalent of 4p) per £1 spent in-store or online and also points for photo printing and certain website purchases from companies who are part of ‘treat street’. They also send out regular vouchers for money off or extra points, have a magazine for free to loyalty card customers and extra offers kiosks in store to check your point balance, change your personal details or print off vouchers. Loyalty cards such as Iceland’s ‘bonus card’ doesn’t offer points for your purchases but do have a lot of advantages of their own. They can be used to save money in place of savings stamps which comes in handy in the run up to Christmas each year, prints off vouchers for things you’ve bought previously and it means your address and other details are ready without any messing about if you get your shopping delivered making it quicker and easier at the checkout. My favourite loyalty card at the minute is Tesco’s ‘Clubcard’ as not only do they send out regular vouchers and give you a point (1p) for every £1 of your shopping which they send out to you in money off vouchers which can be doubled on certain items using the ‘Clubcard boost’ scheme but they now also give you money off your petrol just for using the card. Fuel save, where every £50 you spend means 2p off your petrol which can be accumulated over each month to be used by the end of the following month is a brilliant incentive for customers and it’s certainly encouraged a lot more people to get a clubcard and shop with Tesco.

My advice to you is always read the small print. When you sign up for any loyalty card there is usually a box you can tick if you don’t want your personal details to be shared with other companies or if you don’t want to be contacted about offers etc so pay attention to this and mark them as appropriate. If there are no real benefits, you very rarely shop there or what the loyalty card offers isn’t beneficial to you then is it really worth getting one? Its only gonna be sitting there taking up space and its going to be a company that has your personal details for no reason which I know I’d prefer to avoid. Hopefully one day there will be one loyalty card for every store combined but until that day I think I’d better get a bigger purse…