Retail store credit cards take a lot of heat for high interest rates and relatively narrow purchasing power: most, unless they happen to be co-branded with a major credit card label like Visa or MasterCard, can only be used within the store and not anywhere else. But now, the Sears department store is really beefing up its offerings to retail store cardholders with an innovative new spate of features that will extend many additional values to customers while maintaining the same features that Sears cardholders have come to expect over the years. Times are tough, and it’s rare to see the credit card bank that is giving new benefits to its consumer base, rather than taking them away.
Primary among the exciting new benefits being offered to Sears department store credit cardholders is an expansive, comprehensive suite of credit score access tools and features. Sears will become the very first major retailer to offer its clients unlimited, free access to their credit scores, as well as several tools to help them better understand and improve their personal credit. The company will use a proprietary “credit score simulator” apparatus to offer cardholders heretofore unavailable access to information about their personal financial situation – not just their Sears card.
Sears cardholders will also be privy to special monthly sales that will be exclusive to those holding a store card. Frequent shoppers of Sears will undoubtedly be delighted to receive a flurry of deals, ranging from extra discounts, valuable coupons, and deferred interest financing offers along with their monthly paper billing statement. There’s nothing like a treat to take the edge off opening a bill – and it’s extremely smart promotion on the part of Sears, who may just end up getting cardholders to spend about as much as they just paid on their bill.
The department store chain is also unveiling the Sears Platinum MasterCard, a co-branded product that will mark the first platinum card available to Sears customers that is also accepted everywhere else that MasterCard cards are at point of sale. The card is said to be slammed full of benefits on top of those already offered to Sears cardholders both new and old. Consumers approved for this premium credit product will be given the choice to enroll in the Sears Platinum MasterCard Choice Rewards program, a rewards scheme that allows consumers to choose their rewards based upon what they themselves enjoy: dining, merchandise, travel, and many other options! Cardholders will earn one dollar in rewards for every dollar they spend, and will receive many other benefits, such as exclusive bonus point events during which customers can rack up more points than usual! Customers who currently hold Sears Gold MasterCard products will automatically be upgraded to the exceptional new Platinum card and given these benefits.
But Sears isn’t stopping there. New credit card products and benefits are not the only ways that the department store is serving its customers to the max. The company has rolled out several other attractive payment options just in time for the kickoff of the holiday shopping season. Sears will offer layaway plans that are both flexible and convenient, giving cash-strapped customers (and who ISN’T cash-strapped, these days?) the opportunity to pay off their purchases in installments and get what they need in time for when it is needed. The store is also re-introducing a “Christmas Club” savings program into which customers deposit a small amount of money every week to save up for holiday shopping. “Santa” will add a three percent bonus to whatever funds are deposited into Christmas Club accounts by the middle of next month, giving customers an additional incentive to save! There will also be several special interest financing deals made available to all Sears cardholders in coming months as an incentive to do their holiday shopping at the department store that America trusts.
The power of positivism cannot be overstated, and Sears is giving consumers a generous shot of something that has long been missing in American retail. With many citizens associating credit cards with nothing but predation and bad business as Big Plastic puts the squeeze on in advance of February’s kick off of new credit card industry laws, it makes perfect sense for Sears to establish itself as bucking the trend and doing something to make people happy and help them out. With so many banks taking away, it’s nice to see even one giving something back. Naturally, credit at Sears is likely to still be just as expensive as it has always been – store credit cards routinely bear interest rates of almost thirty percent for even the best consumers – but with Citibank and other “mainstream” lenders jacking up their rates by triple-digit percentages, the gap between regular cards and store plastic is rapidly closing. And at least Sears is sweetening the deal, unlike its competitors.
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