End of free newspaper at Waitrose

emmajones1976

fatbelly said:

We've been doing £10 shops at Waitrose to get a free paper for some time. It's often quite difficult to get up to that mark as we look at things and think 'that's cheaper in Lidl.'

I suspect we'll be spending less time in Waitrose in the future.

So you are spending more in one supermarket to get a free paper which is worth what, a quid?

This seems very counterproductive all round tbh. 

fatbelly

emmajones1976 said:

So you are spending more in one supermarket to get a free paper which is worth what, a quid?

This seems very counterproductive all round tbh. 

Seems a long time since you last bought a newspaper!

GaleSF63

catsclaws said:

I see Waitrose have also changed their delivery charges. Slots now cost between £2-£5 depending on time. There has been no notification, just prices on the book a slot page.

It must be regional at the moment. It isn't showing on my book a slot pages which go up to 4th March.

MDMD

According to the MSE page on this they are keeping the offer for certain people. 

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/02/waitrose-free-newspaper-shake-up/

cymruchris

When I started shopping with Waitrose online in 2019 - I took advantage of the offer in the first few shops - but soon just seemed a waste of resources, when everything within a newspaper I was already getting quicker through other online resources. I didn't gain any advantage from reading a newspaper - so stopped claiming it a long time ago. It doesn't bother me - and they won't lose my custom over it. 

DIWaters

Another attempt to personalise the personal reward/benefit scheme on my behalf using Big Data but all Waitrose seems to have done over the past few years is alienate sections of its customer base and erode goodwill.  I went for the newspaper offer but got drawn in to spending far more than the qualifying £10 on its luxury ‘creature comfort’ offerings particularly on special occasions  - Christmas, anniversaries etc.  I won’t travel across town on Sundays anymore; I don’t suppose that will worry them too much and I’ll save some dosh but life will be a little less extravagant, flamboyant and organic,  more essentials, mundane and everyday. A sad parting all round.  

Farway

GaleSF63 said:

catsclaws said:

I see Waitrose have also changed their delivery charges. Slots now cost between £2-£5 depending on time. There has been no notification, just prices on the book a slot page.

It must be regional at the moment. It isn't showing on my book a slot pages which go up to 4th March.

Same here, still showing £3 delivery all slots

JaneDoeJohnDoe

I am surprised the newspaper offer is going as I thought the Covid situation would have been ideal to totally remove the coffee machine idea.

matchmade2

DIWaters said:

Another attempt to personalise the personal reward/benefit scheme on my behalf using Big Data but all Waitrose seems to have done over the past few years is alienate sections of its customer base and erode goodwill. 

I agree. This so-called "personalisation" is a pain in the neck, such a waste of company resources, and displays an unhealthy attitude towards customers. If Waitrose really are going to keep rewarding regular purchasers of newspapers, I expect I will now have to store (and not lose) a Partnership token to use for my Saturday Telegraph every week. What's the point, when I was already using their "newspaper for £10" offer most weeks? Is the idea to save money and cut out occasional purchasers (even if they may become regular customers because of the offer) and "lock in" people like me, like I'm a robot? If so, what an attitude to adopt towards your customers! A perk should be a generalised perk, not something that is only offered to some customers and not others based on some overcomplicated algorithm and deeply suspect notion that regular customers in particular are automata to be seduced at an individual level and then forced to participate in all this ludicrous micro-management.

I'm reminded of how I've just given up using petrol companies' loyalty schemes. Every company operates a different app, which means loads of clutter and time-wasting app management on your phone. Shell used to provide a card, which you could keep somewhere convenient in the car and get it swiped every time you bought petrol, but now you are forced to use an app, which means every time you visit the petrol station you have to turn on web browsing (I keep mine off to save battery power and avoid fraudulent downloads or continuously-running movies using up my browsing allowance), faff around finding the app, scan a barcode, blah blah blah, when I just want to pay and go. Shell may think they are being clever, tracking every tiny individual consumer by forcing them to use an app, but all it does is drive people like me away. Why bother, just for a piddling couple of quid every other month? Life's too short.

I do still use a couple of loyalty schemes: the Waitrose card does offer money-off tokens that is directly related to my past regular purchases, and the Tesco scheme, despite cutbacks, still offers fairly decent deductions via Points. The rest offer poor returns and are too much hassle, given how infrequently I shop with them and the inflexibility of their systems.

yksi

The loss of the newspaper is nothing to do with personalisation, in reality. That's a spin word they're using to distract shoppers from the fact they've lost something. Morrisons said something similar when they revamped "More" and wrecked the voucher options for people.

People have noted that Waitrose will lose out on the customers who spend £10 just to get that free paper. Rest assured, they know exactly what the free paper was earning them, thanks to the detailed data the membership cards gets them. The reason they've removed the free paper is that it wasn't profitable. Even though people may have travelled a little further to visit Waitrose rather than their local Sainsbury's, and even though people spent more to get over the minimum amount, they were still losing money by giving out the paper. They know which customers they'll lose, based on knowing your addresses. They still felt they'd be better off losing your business.

The personalisation, on the other hand, is still an opportunity to them. I notice now and then that Tesco's offers are quite personalised to me. They know what I usually buy and offer me deals on those. Morrisons too, even if there are fewer useful ones. And for those who lament that they're always offered "£5 off a £50 spend" when they never go over £40... these aren't just random useless offers, they're carefully chosen to try and entice you to spend slightly more than usual. For instance, if you normally spend a tenner you won't get a "£30 off £200" offer, you'll get one trying to make you spend £20.