cross-posted from: https://lemmy.cafe/post/6017593
More to read on:
https://northeastnews.net/pages/remember-this-trading-stamps/" Commonly called “trading stamps,” merchants across America offered savings stamps based on the amount of the customer’s purchase. The more one purchased, the more stamps were obtained for the cash transaction.
Stamps were pasted into savings books and when full, could be redeemed at a redemption center chock-full of name brand items, from household goods to appliances, home decor and toys. Depending on the merchant, the stamps offered could be Gold Bond, S&H Green Stamps, or Top Value, among others. "
I think, it work like royalty promotion, isn't it ? Can someone enlightening me on this stuff.
Perhaps it is not like food/fuel/clothes stamps in the Soviet ?!
The concept of independent stamp companies sounds absolutely insane nowadays, but here's how it worked.
I start a stamp company, let's say, BlueStamp. I call some major retailers and sell them rolls of my BlueStamp, that's where I make money.
See, people will want BlueStamps, because I've got amazing products they can get for free (the retailer paid for them by buying stamps). The retailers want to buy my stamps, because people will want them, which will make them shop at their store.
I just have to smart about it. I'll only sell my BlueStamps to BobMart and not AndyShop, because I don't want then they don't get to benefit as much. After all, If you can get BlueStamps everywhere, why would Bob or Andy even get them? I offer to supermarkt chain A, and not B, I offer it to Appliance store C, but not D. A BlueStamo saver will prefer a BlueStamp store over a Green stamp store, after all.
I might even give some big comapanies a discount on my stamps, because a bigger network offers more value, and I'll sell more stamps to these companies. Getting, say, Walmart in my system will make me very popular, and then I can charge every corner store at full price.
And that system worked really well, untill it got popular. There were literally hundreds of these systems, which make it all fall apart pretty quickly, and everyone just started offering their own savings programs.
I don’t know if they still do it, but as recently as the ’00s Lowe’s Foods in North Carolina was offering S&H Green Points, no longer physical stamps but an electronic program tied to your phone number. I don’t think my parents ever really used it for much. I think now they give a discount on gasoline purchased at the stations many stores have in the parking lots.
It was only years later that I learned they used to be S&H Green Stamps, but I never understood how the program worked.