Important changes to the Over 65s Loyalty Card Scheme
As of Monday 6th June, we will be reducing the senior citizen discount for Over 65s loyalty card holders from 10% to 5%.
Why is the discount changing?
We are sure that our customers will be as aware and concerned as we are by the rise in the cost of living in the UK. Unfortunately, recent retail price increases are not the only way in which our business has been impacted by the current economic climate.
As a business, Greenlife has not only been impacted by escalating fuel costs, but also by increases in many other overheads – including business rates, rental costs, wages, and our National Insurance contribution.
This has been compounded by an increase in supply costs and a substantial reduction in the profit margins offered to us from our wholesale suppliers. As we hope our customers will understand, Greenlife needs to remain profitable as a business, and as a result we need to make changes to some of the generous discounts that we have always offered our customers. The 10% case discount has also been reduced to 5%, for these same reasons.
Greenlife is now a Living Wage employer
The Living Wage Foundation is an initiative started by Citizens UK in 2001. The real Living Wage is the only rate calculated according to the costs of living. It provides a voluntary benchmark for employers that wish to ensure their staff earn a wage they can live on, not just the government minimum. Greenlife is proud to have become an accredited Living Wage Employer. This is especially significant to our staff considering the current changes to the cost of living in the UK.
The Good News
With the pressures on the business, we have had to review all our running costs, and to make savings where we can. We considered stopping the Over 65s discount completely, but felt we wanted to avoid this if we could. We sincerely hope that our customers will see that it is good news that we are still able to offer a discount at all, despite the substantial increases in our overheads. We have also decided to continue with the ‘everyday discount’ changes that we made in 2020, enabling senior citizens to get a discount not just on a single designated day of the week – but every day.
We really value our loyal regular customers at Greenlife, many of whom have shopped with us for many years. We understand that these changes will not be popular with anyone, but we believe retaining a 5% discount is preferable to discontinuing the scheme altogether. This discount is also substantially higher than that offered by our standard loyalty scheme (1 point = 1p per £1 spent), and more than the majority of our competitors.
Fair Prices & Special Offers
We will be working hard to keep retail prices as low as possible and will be striving to find the very best special offers possible to enable customers to keep the cost of their weekly Greenlife shop competitive. We know that healthy, fair trade and organic foods can be expensive, but hope that all of our customers will still appreciate the ethical, additive free and quality product choices that we offer.
We will also continue to strive for the very best standards of customer service and informed advice on the high street and will continue to support our local and artisan suppliers as much as possible through these harder times.
Thank you for your continued custom.
Yours sincerely,
The Greenlife Management Team
May 2022