Working at Canadian Tire (linkedin)

Click on the link, Working at Canadian Tire To see how Canadian Tire promote their business and show how their business touches Canadians in their everyday lives.

Canadian Tire Loyalty Program

          Did you know Canada’s oldest loyalty program is from Canadian Tire? What is a loyalty program by the way? Loyalty programs are designed marketing effort to promote a business, product and sale merchandises. It is a creative way to win the customer devotion to the business in exchange of an incentive.

The Canadian Tire program was introduced way back in 1958 to Muriel Billes, wife of Canadian tire co-founder A.J. Billes. A few years later, the Canadian Tire money was born. It is made out of genuine bank note paper to help prevent counterfeiters from copying the money. The same mythology is still being use until now. Like I wrote to my first Blog who does not like extra change as a reward when you are about leave the store after purchasing a product.

Years pass, Canadian Tire made an upgrade to their loyalty program. Canadian Tire money in the card was introduced. A promotional attempt to have customer effectively collect points using their Canadian Tire MasterCard Option. But they never stop from there, Canadian Tire just recently launch “Canadian Tire Money Advantage”. I’ll be blogging more about this to one of my future blog. Anyhow, I believed loyalty programs are not just attempts by organization to make money. But it is an effortless attempt by companies to share success, by giving customer opportunities to win rewards.

Gift Certificate from PartSource

Have you ever heard of gift certificate expiring? Well I just recently discovered back in 2009 PartSource, a Canadian tire owned company launch a promo that you can purchase gift certificates that doesn’t expire.  http://www.partsource.ca/tools/PartSource-news-12-03-2009.asp how convenient is that. I, a person that loves to work on my vehicle wishes that I would have found out about their gift certificate 3 years ago. Imagine friends and families that have asked me what I want as a gift, normally I would have just said anything. PartSource is a store that sells over 300,000 automotive parts.

http://www.partsource.ca/tools/car-enthusiasts.asp Imagine the money I would have save.  Their automotive parts may probably not support car dealership quality. But if you want to save money and you’re a type of person that do a lot of work on your vehicle, tell your friends and family ask them to buy you PartSource gift certificate instead.

History of Canadian Tire

Canadian tire….

This company has been around since 1922. A Canadian owned company, uses their own money which I like by the way. There is nothing more beneficial when store gives you extra change.

Canadian tire uses a great marketing strategy that listens to people needs and concerns. Throughout the years Canadian Tire has been one of the best hardware stores in the country. Today, they rank 56 out of 100 Canadian companies with big revenue through 2012. Not bad, when business analyst seemingly judge the company would falter in the mid 1990’s.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/top-1000/canadas-100-biggest-companies-by-revenue-in-2012/article4372876/

What about Ted and Gloria, a real married couple shown in several Canadian Tire commercials a lot of people speculate it was because of them Canadian tire is still the best hardware store. I’ve worked for Canadian tire for six years and I felt the big boost on sales and orders in the year 2000, you'd be the judge. I believe it’s because of innovative ideas. Eventually, Ted and Gloria were dropped by the company. I guess because of demographic reasons, in order for companies compete in the tough market, innovative changes must be made.

Canadian tire now focuses on investing in sister based company. They got their own clothing store, petroleum pump station, financial services and Partsource. I mean… I've never used their own gas station or shop at their clothing store. But what really make them successful? Is it because of the young generation that cannot make up their own mind or is it simply whenever Canadians shopped at a Canadian tire store make them feel proud and patriotic citizens so they keep coming back? For me, I think it's because of their services whenever I shopped at Canadian tire I always found what I need, charged at a reasonable price.