Woolworths’s dubious advertising

Woolworths ran a serious advertising campaign promoting its new Black credit card. One of the incentives was that if you applied before May 31 you would receive R1 000 in fashion vouchers.

In a press release, it stated “in a special launch offer, customers who open a Woolworths Black credit card account before May 31 2010 will receive R1 000 in fashion vouchers, which they can use when purchasing clothing [including Country Road & Trenery] at Woolworths”.

It would be reasonable to assume that these were actual vouchers that you could use as cash.

Yet this is not what Woolworths meant at all. What they really meant, and which was not disclosed in the promotional material, was that this related to “discount” vouchers. So you have to spend some serious money on your new credit card to get the discounts.

And it is also not “spend R5 000 and get R1 000” off either. It is broken down into various categories like “spend R500 on Tenery clothing and get back R100” and “spend R250 on Country Road and get back R50”. It would be pretty hard work, and lots of spending, to benefit from this promotion.

This leads one to wonder what kind of vouchers they mean by “Cardholders will earn a generous 3% back in wvouchers on purchases made at Woolworths with the card and 1% back in wvouchers for purchases made with the card outside of Woolworths.”

In response to a Mail & Guardian query, Woolworths stated: “Our intention was certainly not to mislead customers in any way. Our promotional fashion vouchers are generally issued with a minimum spend requirement. We regret any misunderstanding and would like to assure you that we are reviewing all marketing material to ensure that all future material is unambiguous.”

The good news is that at least, according to Woolworths, the loyalty programme wvouchers will not have a minimum spend requirement and will be a “real” voucher.

But is it a card worth owning?
With the correct information now at hand, is this still a card worth owning? It all depends on how much you spend at Woolies each month. With a service fee of R49,59 (annual fee R595), it makes it one of the more expensive credit cards. You would have to spend nearly R2 000 a month at Woolworths to get enough wvouchers back to offset your monthly service fee. Alternatively you would need to spend R5 000 a month at other stores to offset the fee.

There are additional benefits but you need to decide if you would use them:
A free monthly Taste magazine.
Two free coffees a month.
Free online shopping delivery.

If you do online shopping and shop at a Woolworths that sells coffee (not all Woolworths do) then the fee would be justified. You need to do the maths, but overall not great value for money at that monthly rate.

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