I read an article from BusinessWeek called “AmEx’s Holiday Gift Fever” that discusses American Express’s simulated Black Friday. They created a website that allows customers to buy sought after and expensive items for cheaper prices than retail. This program, available only to certain American Express customers, will create incentive not only to buy more products, but also to get an AmEx credit card for the benefits it provides its elite customers. AmEx also hopes to build brand loyalty among its card holders. They want to do something that competitors cannot match so that card holders appreciate the company and its benefits. Brands such as Porsche and Sony participate in the website, giving them exposure and advertisement to all American Express customers. This provides incentive for companies to offer things up for sale on the site. This year is not the first time the wish list site has existed, however membership has been growing rapidly. In 2004, membership was 235,000 while in 2005 it grew to over 400,000. Clearly, the site is having the anticipated and desired response. It is a great idea, I think, because everyone benefits. The site helps consumers, producers, and its sponsor—American Express.
-Whitney Kamin
2 comments:
Credit cards are pretty interesting to me, mainly because stores pay the credit card company, not the other way around.
Well since we recently learned all the tricks and scams that surround credit cards, I'm starting to see how these deals are possible. The thing that's interesting, though, is that for a lot of these companies to provide these perks, they also need to create a proportionate amount of pitfalls and traps. An AmEx card holder needs to lose for another one to win.
I think Amex can offer whatever they want but they are still not going to be as enormous as Visa and Mastercard. I mean AMex offers you all those gimmicks and the black card which you have to spend 250,000 dollars a year on your credit and what do you get? You get the same incentives as a platinum member except you can say you have a black card and some stores shut down for you. Also, AMex has no limits which can be good or bad but they also have the highest interest rates which i believe turns a lot of people off. Also more places accept visa and mastercard then they do amex. I also dont see why porsche would advertise through an amex wishlist considering no one buys a car online...sure they go to a website maybe to look at a car but then they will go test drive it shop around and they most likely wont put the car on their credit card
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