This morning I had a few hours to kill with the kids while the missus was getting her hair done so I headed down to Boucher thinking I could check out a few car showrooms, but the lure of the new-ish development with Matalan and TKMax proved more enticing.
I’ve never been into either of these stores (these ones in particular, or any others of the same name) so I thought it was worth checking out.
TKmax was fine, reminded me of Poundstretcher and nothing much to write home about so we went to Matalan which was a bit more of the same. Except for some Spider Man underpants my son took a liking to, so off we trot to the checkout.
Assistant: Do you have a Matalan card?
Me: No, it’s ok (thinking pretty much every store these days offers you a store card)
Assistant: You can’t buy anything without one.
Now, paint me pink and call me princess, what the fuck? This has to be a joke. Now I’m concerned about privacy as much as the next Joe, I am aware of the data mining capability and that they’ll be able to tell when I’m likely to buy, and quantity of, and sizes, of every school uniform for the next 14+ years. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a nut who refuses all these cards, I’ve got my tesco and boots cards, the boots card comes in very handy in buying my sandwich when I have no spare change saving me a trip to the ATM. But when someone *requires* me to have one I draw the line… so
Me: Excuse me?
Assistant repeats: You can’t buy anything without one. (and proceeds to tear one off a paper card handing it to me to fill in)
Transaction complete, he hands me my receipt and the shiney new Matalan card which I promptly hand him back with a "Please bin that". I’m even surprised that he looked shocked at my behaviour.
So, my one and only expercience in Matalan is likely to remain my one and only experience. However, should the occassion arise again I think I’ll do the same thing, perhaps someday they’ll rethink stupid policies such as this.
Ooh, Thanks for the warning…
It’s not that I’m some sort of privacy fetishist, either – in fact, my home address & telephone number, mobile number, and all sorts of other details are splattered all over the interwab.
No, I don’t have any store cards for a couple of reasons:
1) I’m crap at carrying stuff like that around with me, and
2) I’m enough of a curmudgeon that I don’t want the bastards-who-take-my-money to be given anything more than I’ve already handed over when paying. I think it’s the fact that the benefits of using the card are so disproportionately loaded in the shops’ favour (and therefore, this might not apply to Co-op members, I suppose) that really irks me.
So, er, no matalan for me.
rite im gonna start by sayin
the store is a discount store
the card does come in handy u try takin sumthing bk to s shop witout a reciept and see how far u get.
and with more members then there is more discount on the goods.
1) Receipts: What has a store card got to do with receipts or taking anything back? Perhaps some people actually keep receipts.
2) Discount store: So is Poundstretcher plus several hundred other stores – none of those require you to have a store card to purchase.
3) More members: This is crap. The purchasing managers get discounts based on how much they buy (related to how much they can sell) – this is irrelevant to how much "members" they have. It is a factor of how many "customers" they have (and average spend). In this instance, for me anyway, enforce member == one less customer.
4) This isn’t a mobile phone medium, it would be courteous to use correct spelling and punctuation.
Thanks for reading.
Ok i KNOW how annoying this is. I work for Matalan, and have to explain this to customers on a daily basis.
It’s not our fault, i swear, we do what we are told.
I don’t agree with the procedure anymore than you do and can see how annoying it would be, particularly if you’re in a rush. You really do have my sympathy, but how about a little bit in return for us poor till people who have to awkwardly explain this to irate customers….
Customers dont need a Matalan card to make a purchase, they can simply get a day pass from either the reception desk or the cashier they are buying from and note it on their receipt.
However, a card makes things a lot easier.
… snipped ….
pgregg edit: Quit posting empty messages.
IP: 86.129.166.64
right i have worked at mataln 4 3 years now and i love it yer that card is a problem the reson it started is becoz u had to own your own buissnes to shop there like makro but now the reson we have 1 is
1. if u want magazines (which most ppl dont) u can
2. if u lose your recipte wid in the 28day u can return stuff we can look up what u baught on the comp and we have the same stock in year in year out some ppl have things eg a tshirt for 2 years and try and bring it back we can look on there card and tell them no u got in a year ago
but most of all
3. it tells head office what we are selling so insted of them senning us boxs and boxs of stock in they only have to send us stuff we sell so we dont end up wid loads of stuff in the stock room
4. and now we have interdused a new car witch is a card were u will earn points this has just been interdused in scotland and is soon starting in the uk wales and irland
and to clear up you can only get a day pass if u have a card !!!
I shop at MATALAN occasionally, but I must say they really get on my b…. with their eternal question for a card!
As they are not a wholesale and sell to the general public, it would actually be ILLEGAL to have a compulsory card. Anyone, who tells you, you can’t buy anything without it is lying or donsn’t know any better. This is a sophistcated, agressive form of marketing, which seems to fool even some of the most intelligent people I know.
However, I am not prepared to participate in the company’s game, so I just pick up the things I want to buy, go to the till, and my answer to their question is always no, thank you!
couldn’t you just fill in the form for the card with fake information if they’re adamant that u can’t buy anything without one?…