One of our local yarn shops here has a "frequent buyer" program, i.e., for every $5 you spend at the shop, they punch a card, and when it's filled up -- I believe it's $150 worth -- you get 10% back: $15 in free merchandise the next time you come in.

I think that's such a great idea. It promotes loyalty and makes you want to spend more money, so really, everyone wins. I wish more stores would do that.

I went there today, intending just to check out the sale room and see if they had any cotton yarn, because I wanted to try knitting some washcloths; I thought that would be a quick, easy Christmas gift, maybe. I found a lone ball of coral-colored Calmer, and then I also picked up a skein of red and black sock yarn that I thought might make a cool pair of fingerless gloves. I thought about buying some Silk Garden, but their price--$11.00--seems awfully high when I compare it to the $7.95 or so that I've paid online.

Still, I do like buying locally if I can, and there's that frequent buyer thing going on . . . but I decided to wait, and just get the two sale things.

When I got up to the register, I noticed that they had a sign up that from now on, you would get one punch on your card for every $10 in purchases. So they effectively made it twice as hard to get anything free--now you'll have to spend $300 to get $15. I though, oh well, and handed over my debit card and my punch card, thinking at least since I was spending about $15, I'd get one punch.

The saleslady took my cards, processed the credit card, and handed the punch card back to me without a word, or a punch. I thought she'd forgotten, and said, "Um, did you want to punch it for me?" and she said, without looking up, "Not on sale items, sorry."

And I thought, okay, that's it for this shop. It's always packed, they've got knitting classes going on all the time, it's always full of women buying expensive novelty yarns. I know it's tough running a small business, but you know what? I'd almost rather they just discontinue a program like that rather than making it doubly harder to get anything. Frankly, it would have made me a lot happier if they had said that you had until whatever date to fill up a card, and after that it was discontinued.

The other thing they do that bugs me is that they mark merchandise up--you'll quite often pick up yarn where the price has been marked out with a marker and another price written in. Obvioiusly suppliers raise their prices, but raising the (already high) price on older stock to match new prices seems wrong to me.

Anyway, I guess I'll just go back to ordering online. It's less hassle and less expense, and infinitely less aggravating.