Tuam Herald "Zapa" weekly advert

pauliewallie200

Has anyone noticed the adverts in the past 3 or 4 editions of Tuam Herald regarding "Zapa" and "are you ready to tap?". These are colourful adverts in prominant positions on inside page (page 3) ....reminds me of the "Big Ed loves Mona" adverts back in the Eighties!
What are these adverts for?

dec25532

It is the loyalty shopping initiative being launched by Energise Tuam. Basically it involves shoppers getting a computerised tag attached to their mobile phone and get bonus points if they shop in a variety of outlets around the town. If they accumulate 10 bonus points, they can avail of discounts at these shops. Only one flaw in the system, I think. It costs €10 to get one of these computerised strips when it should be free to give the incentive to shoppers to join the scheme.

pauliewallie200

dec25532 wrote: »

It is the loyalty shopping initiative being launched by Energise Tuam. Basically it involves shoppers getting a computerised tag attached to their mobile phone and get bonus points if they shop in a variety of outlets around the town. If they accumulate 10 bonus points, they can avail of discounts at these shops. Only one flaw in the system, I think. It costs €10 to get one of these computerised strips when it should be free to give the incentive to shoppers to join the scheme.

It's all revealed in this weeks Tuam Herald. It's a customer loyalty/reward scheme, aparently the 1st of it's type in Europe.
Looks like a fantastic idea.
On foot of reading this I called into a "Love your Town" shop that they have in High Street and wow! it looks great. The lady in there told me all about it...it actually is very good value i.e. for your 10euro purchase of the Zapatag you get discounts (72 discounts) in all of the 72 participating stores, even up to 15% in some shops. The lady calculated that the 10euro could get you well in excess of 200 euro in discounts. They also have many other promotions & gimmicks coming soon.
Finally she told me that the local businesses & this technology company, Zapa, have invested over 100k in the project - not surprised as the shop must have cost a fortune to fit out.

boc3

Is this the same Zapa Tag that I can get for free from Insomnia?If so then people in Tuam have to pay €10 for it but people outside Tuam can pick one up for free? Sounds a bit weird.

pauliewallie200

boc3 wrote: »

Is this the same Zapa Tag that I can get for free from Insomnia?If so then people in Tuam have to pay €10 for it but people outside Tuam can pick one up for free? Sounds a bit weird.

Not a bit weird as they are totally different i.e.

Tuam Zapa tag = discounts of up to 15% in 72 shops in Tuam town (ranging from chemists to clothes shops to office supplies to cafes to health stores etc). Costs 10 euro but they claim you can save hundreds of euro by using the tag in the 70 odd participating shops.

Insomnia Zapa tag = one free coffee with every 10 coffees purchased using your Zapa tag. That's why it is free.

I bought two Zapa tags (one for the hubbie too!) in Tuam on Saturday afternoon ex some Transitions year students selling them at the Square for 20 euro. The Zapa people had organised a load of entertainment around the Square & had the roads closed off....looked & sounded like great craic but there was not a big crowd.

Must admit it is well worth it as we got 10% off our meal in O'Tooles (saved 1.90) and 10% off my xmas outfit in a clothes shop (saved 9.50). Net gain of 1.40 on my tag & we still have another 70 shops to visit yet! Happy days as we have still to buy santa!:)

dec25532

It is the €10 charge to avail of a shopping reward scheme which seems to have got a lot of people's backs up. There shouldn't be an obstacle in the way of consumers availing of discounts. I know very little about it but have been talking to people who are outraged that it costs money to buy into a sopping incentive scheme.

boc3

I know there is a difference between how the tag operates in Insomnia and Tuam but it's because there is that difference that I'm confused. I guess I don't understand fully how the Tuam one operates - there's not much information on the website so if anyone can explain I'd appreciate it.

Is the Tuam operation the Zapatag sticker that you put on your phone? Do you just show it to get the discount (the website says this was the way it worked before) or do you have to do something to get the discount? And if it is the same design as the Insomnia sticker then how do you tell the difference between them and, if they operate separately, does it mean you have to have two stickers on your phone?

The Tuam idea is good for town but seem to be a bit confusing with the other retailers - maybe the website just needs some updating with some more specific information.

Tinder

Although a great idea another flaw is that if you spend €10 in O'Tooles you get a point and if you spend €1000 in Stapleton’s you get a point, I think it would be better if the points you got were equivalent to your purchase.

boc3

I've completely misunderstood what this thing does.I understood it was like a student card... show it every time you shop and get a discount that varied from business to business. Thats all the website mentions.
What do you get points for and what do you do with them?

pauliewallie200

Is the Tuam operation the Zapatag sticker that you put on your phone?
Yes


Do you just show it to get the discount (the website says this was the way it worked before) or do you have to do something to get the discount?

First of all buy one for a tenner & yes, tap it at the cashpoint (there is a reader-machine like a credit card machine in every shop to do this).

And if it is the same design as the Insomnia sticker then how do you tell the difference between them and, if they operate separately, does it mean you have to have two stickers on your phone?

Dunno. Presume they are similar. Tags we bought tags are fairly small & thin.

The Tuam idea is good for town but seem to be a bit confusing with the other retailers - maybe the website just needs some updating with some more specific information.[/quote]

Good point. They should get some user friendly type info onto their website

pauliewallie200

Tinder wrote: »

Although a great idea another flaw is that if you spend €10 in O'Tooles you get a point and if you spend €1000 in Stapleton’s you get a point, I think it would be better if the points you got were equivalent to your purchase.

Suppose twas the only way they could get such a scheme work for so many different retailers over so many different sectors. I would be surprised if they don't change it to your idea at some stage in the future like one point for every euro spent.

pauliewallie200

boc3 wrote: »

I've completely misunderstood what this thing does.I understood it was like a student card... show it every time you shop and get a discount that varied from business to business. Thats all the website mentions.
What do you get points for and what do you do with them?

It is not a student card... its a wee tag that you can stick onto your mobile or a handbag/wallett. I bought my zapa tag for a tenner at the weekend. Immedietely it entitled me to discounts ranging from 5% up to 20% in 70+ participating retailers. They call these 70 odd discounts "first taps". Every time I spend over a tenner in a participating Zapa/Love your town shop, I also get one point...If I want to get a 2nd discount in a shop (i.e. go back to a same shop again) I need to have 10 points built up on my zapa tag.
Hope this helps..they might give me a job!:)

boc3

Hi Paulie,
Didn't mean to be facetious or anything. I knew it was a sticker but what I meant about the Student Card mention is that when I was a student (some time ago now) you could buy a student card and it entitled you to discounts in participating shop. But you could use it as many times as you want in the same shop. I knew this was a sticker but thought it could be reused again and again in the shop.
What it sounds like is (and again it's just the clearest analogy that makes sense in my head) is a book of vouchers...only one voucher for each shop in it but you can get more vouchers for the same shop by making additional purchases.

They should definitely employ you because it's now much clearer...as I mentioned it simply isn't clear from the website...neither that a discount can be used only once in each shop nor the fact that you can "top-up" by buying things in town.

I'm still curious if I wandered in with an Insomnia tag (sounds the same as yours...a thin tag to stick on the phone just labelled ZapaTag) if it would work...If it didn't I could see space for confusion both for Insomnia and Tuam holders and if it did then I could see very upset people in Tuam.

Sounds a good idea but definitely needs more explanation ..and maybe more Tuam than Zapa branding.

Thanks again for the explanation...much clearer now

hilaryb

just picked mine up. its the biz. will be telling all my friends about it.

i hate carrying around cards and fobs and other junk...