MediaMarkt pulls out a red pencil: austerity measures hit millions of customers
Those who remain loyal to MediaMarkt will be rewarded: for years, the electronics retailer has offered a bonus program that offers many advantages. This has now been completely revised – to the detriment of customers. Because in addition to a new name, MediaMarkt has also drastically reduced the scope of services. It is already the second major austerity measure this year.
Bonus programs are not a new invention. Even before Payback and Co., bakeries rewarded their most loyal customers with a stamp card. The tenth coffee was free. Big electronics chains like MediaMarkt don’t work that old-fashioned, but the principle behind the MediaMarkt Club bonus program is the same. In the future, however, club members will have to be satisfied with less.
MediaMarkt’s new bonus program halves points payout
Because the MediaMarkt Club is renamed and is now called myMediaMarkt. That alone would not be worth reporting if the electronics retailer had not made a small but decisive change to the amount of points paid out.
Up until now, MediaMarkt customers have received 10 points for every euro spent, whether online or in store. At myMediaMarkt this is now cut in half: There are now only 5 points for every euro spent (Source: MediaMarkt). To stay with the bakery example: That would be roughly the same as only half a stamp being put on the stamp card for each coffee-to-go. Conversely, this means: In order to get the same number of points as before, MediaMarkt customers now have to buy twice as much.
To the Point limits, on the other hand, do not change. The points collected can be exchanged for MediaMarkt coupons. There is a 10 euro voucher for 10,000 points, a 25 euro voucher for 25,000 points and a 50 euro voucher for 50,000 points. If you previously had to leave a total of 1,000 euros at MediaMarkt to receive a 10-euro voucher, you now have to spend 2,000 euros.
There are other ways to save:
MediaMarkt has already discontinued the newsletter voucher
MediaMarkt already scrapped the popular newsletter voucher at the beginning of the year. At that time there was a 10 euro discount on the first order for every newsletter subscription if the order value exceeded 100 euros.
Why MediaMarkt is now taking another cost-cutting measure that is said to affect 9 million club members (source: MobileFlip), is not known. The electronics retailer may be trying to cushion internal cost increases in this way.
