OcUK loyalty card, where are you?

addy_010 said:
ah course, never thought about that.

Well to make something of this now pointless thread, can anyone say how much roughly Ocuk make annually after sotkc, rent, fees, tax etc?

guessing the information they dont openly give out, worht a try though.
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You can get a fair amount of financial information from Companies House, they will give you information on profits etc, although OcUK's turnover is sufficiently small that I don't think they have to declare it.
 
I had always thought loyalty cards were just really a way of ensuring people kept purchasing your products and don't use competitors (lets face it no company is really bothered about rewarding us for our loyalty). As stated already in the thread people here are already repeat customers and would shop here over other places anyway. So how would implementing a loyalty card benefit OcUK?
 
Zip said:
Uve become very business minded since uve become an Underboss :p
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No just I reply to threads I would not have done otherwise. ;)

If anything I am less buisness minded on the forums than I was before. :)

I wouldn't want a loyalty for the reason people have stated, OCUK would have to up the price on items to cover any costs involved.

Also why would you get a discount for spending £100, £200 or more, I'm sure Spie sees every customer as the same, regardless it they spend £5 or £500.

At the end of the day, they are providing a service to everyone not just the big spenders.
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That is so true, its better to have the savings across the board to attract new customers, and as they are already low they attract repeat buyers. The price really within a certain margin for me is negligable it is the quality of service I have received from them over the years.

I try competitors every so often, had issues with almost all of them when I start ordering in volume, but OcUK although for some people slow with RMA turn arounds for me personally have been spot on. I quite literally only have one complaint about the whole of OcUK and thats the lack of a shop search function on the main page; which is not bad going.

Its a shame I can't name and shame the competitor experiences I have had, and I know some people will say im a fanboy to OcUK etc, I do order elsewhere but if its something critical that I need the warranty or fast delivery on, OcUK literally everytime. Just my experiences, getting on for just over 90 PC's ordered by various people from them, and the worst experience has been a 2 week RMA a year or so ago.

I really do call it good service, they do so much right already I would hate to see them change, and being selfish, I would hate to see them expand beyond there capacity for good service, I know its the prices that attract people, but for me personally its the customer service factor that keeps me coming back and has OcUK shop, not forum, as my homepage.
 
I wish there was some way ocuk could offer free postage, i hate being forced to make lists and buy everything together and having to work out if its cheaper to get it all from one place.

Some of the hardware prices at that rainforest place are lower than ocuk and they offer free postage on most orders and presumably still make a good profit.

I have a massive list now and everything on it is waiting for a couple of things to get sorted out before i order, if postage was free i could order whenever i wanted and i'm certain i would buy more.
 
Muban said:
I had always thought loyalty cards were just really a way of ensuring people kept purchasing your products and don't use competitors (lets face it no company is really bothered about rewarding us for our loyalty). As stated already in the thread people here are already repeat customers and would shop here over other places anyway. So how would implementing a loyalty card benefit OcUK?
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Loyalty cards are certainly marketed that way, but they are at least as much about data mining and customer profiling as they are about loyalty. You'd be astonished at how accurate a profile of your life can be built up from a few months of watching your purchase transactions at Tesco, etc. It's all about selling you more stuff.


My opinion, for what it's worth, is that all loyalty cards do is buy access to the detail of your life, and they do it for a few pounds. Personally, I wouldn't touch a loyalty card under any circumstances ..... but then, that may just be me.
 
addy_010 said:
Well to make something of this now pointless thread, can anyone say how much roughly Ocuk make annually after sotkc, rent, fees, tax etc?

guessing the information they dont openly give out, worht a try though.
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You can obtain company accounts from IR for a nominal fee.
 
Sequoia said:
Loyalty cards are certainly marketed that way, but they are at least as much about data mining and customer profiling as they are about loyalty. You'd be astonished at how accurate a profile of your life can be built up from a few months of watching your purchase transactions at Tesco, etc. It's all about selling you more stuff.


My opinion, for what it's worth, is that all loyalty cards do is buy access to the detail of your life, and they do it for a few pounds. Personally, I wouldn't touch a loyalty card under any circumstances ..... but then, that may just be me.
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I prefer it if the places i shop know about my buying habbits because it means more targeted advertising, if they know what i like to buy they only send you coupons for those things etc and it can often result in you finding deals you didn't know about.
 
Joe42 said:
I prefer it if the places i shop know about my buying habbits because it means more targeted advertising, if they know what i like to buy they only send you coupons for those things etc and it can often result in you finding deals you didn't know about.
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Fair enough ..... if you want adverts. Personally, I don't want any advertising, targetted or not, and I most definitely don't want them sending me junkmail under any circumstances.
 
No matter how much the dons go on about this forum being a "gesture of good will" and so on and us having to be so so greatful, but without them OcUK would be "just another e-tailor" and wouldn't have nearly as many loyal customers. So I reckon Spies' investment in the server and bandwidth for the forum easily pays for itself and more.
 
IMO. People go back to a shop if they get good service, not just because they got a discount.
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I'd tend to disagree with that. Yes good service is very important, however when I was a University Student and it was possible to get discounts in a number of places I would only shop at stores that gave me a discount on the item I was after. If a store had the item I wanted but wouldn't do a discount but another place did, I wouldn't bother shopping there.

I'm trying to say that I think reward schemes/loyalty/discounts are a good thing and if you tend to spend a lot on something, whether its food shopping, electronics or clothes it's nice to know that over time you are getting a little something back for your custom.
 
St0rmer66 said:
No matter how much the dons go on about this forum being a "gesture of good will" and so on and us having to be so so greatful, but without them OcUK would be "just another e-tailor" and wouldn't have nearly as many loyal customers. So I reckon Spies' investment in the server and bandwidth for the forum easily pays for itself and more.
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How do you know that, though?

How many customers does OcUK have, compared to forum members?

What percentage of sales are from forum members?

How can even Spie necessarily know what percentage of sales are from forum members, let alone how anyone else knows? For instance, if I bought from OcUK, how would anyone know I was a forum member? All they'd have is a credit card number, name and address. None are associated with forum name.

What about forum members that don't buy from OcUK? For instance, I don't. I avoid mail-order entirely unless I have no choice.

How many of those forum members that are OcUK customers would continue to be, because they like the prices, or service levels, or stock range, even without the forums?

How many forum members are members because they're customers, and how many customers are customers because they're forum members? Which came first --- the chcken or the egg?


I can't see how anyone outside OcUK has enough information to form an informed opinion as to whether the forum pays for itself or not, and for the reasons stated above, it'd be hard enough for Spie to be absolutely sure.
 
Nexus said:
..... it's nice to know that over time you are getting a little something back for your custom.
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But, you are. Good prices, good stock selection and good customer service.


Maybe loyalty cards would induce some people to buy here rather rather elsewhere, but it certainly wouldn't work for everybody. At the end of the day, it'll be about profit. After you spend the time and money implementing the system (and setup costs could be significant), and after you've paid the running costs, what's the effect on the bottom line?

For a mail-order operation (primarily), costs are generally pared to the bone. Unless this type of scheme can be shown to have a clear net benefit, I doubt it'll get much consideration. I certainly don't see the point .... but then, I don't have access to OcUKs management accounts. I'm not holding my breath, though.
 
Sequoia said:
Loyalty cards are certainly marketed that way, but they are at least as much about data mining and customer profiling as they are about loyalty. You'd be astonished at how accurate a profile of your life can be built up from a few months of watching your purchase transactions at Tesco, etc. It's all about selling you more stuff.


My opinion, for what it's worth, is that all loyalty cards do is buy access to the detail of your life, and they do it for a few pounds. Personally, I wouldn't touch a loyalty card under any circumstances ..... but then, that may just be me.
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Quoted for truth.

Not to mention the fact that they are damn expensive to administer as well. Even at the very highest level of the PC Components sale industry, margins are extremely tight so I doubt a scheme like this would be self financing. Your then left with cost up or service down. I know what I would settle for
 
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