The Inner Monologue

Ah, retail loyalty programs—the corporate equivalent of a toxic relationship where they ignore you until you threaten to leave, then shower you with discounts and freebies to lure you back. It’s a tale as old as time: businesses obsess over their “loyal” customers while treating potential new ones like strangers at a party who weren’t vetted by the bouncer.

The Survivor Bias Special

Survivor bias is that fun little logical fallacy where you only pay attention to the people who “made it” and ignore the ones who didn’t. In retail, this means companies hyper-focus on the customers who already shop there—the survivors of their mediocre marketing, confusing checkout processes, and overpriced shipping—while blissfully ignoring the graveyard of potential buyers who bounced after one bad experience.

Example A:

• Loyal Customer: Buys every month, gets 20% off, free shipping, exclusive early access, and a handwritten thank-you note (probably written by an underpaid intern).
• New Customer: Gets a pop-up demanding their email before they’ve even seen the product page, then gets hit with a $9.99 shipping fee at checkout.

Gee, I wonder why one group sticks around and the other vanishes into the void?

The Illusion of “Loyalty”

Here’s the dirty secret: most “loyalty” isn’t loyalty at all—it’s inertia, lack of better options, or sunk cost fallacy. Yet retailers act like these customers are devout acolytes who would never dare shop elsewhere. Meanwhile, they do nothing to fix the actual reasons people don’t become customers in the first place.

• Bad UX? “Eh, our regulars know how to navigate it.”
• High shipping costs? “Our VIPs get free shipping anyway.”
• Terrible return policy? “The loyal ones don’t return much!”

Newsflash: If you only reward people after they’ve tolerated your nonsense, you’re not building loyalty—you’re running a cult.

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Neglect

The funniest (saddest?) part? Companies then look at their sales data and say, “See? New customer acquisition is expensive and has low ROI. Better double down on loyalty programs!”

No, Sherlock. New customer acquisition is expensive because you make it miserable to be a new customer. If you treated first-time buyers half as well as your “loyal” ones, maybe they’d stick around long enough to earn that gold-plated discount card.

How to Fix It (But Let’s Be Real, You Won’t)

1. Stop gatekeeping perks. If free shipping is good enough for loyal customers, it’s good enough for new ones.
2. Fix the onboarding experience. If your checkout process feels like a tax audit, no amount of post-purchase coupons will save you.
3. Reward potential, not just persistence. First-time buyer discounts aren’t charity—they’re an investment.

But hey, why change? Clearly, survivor bias has worked so far—for the survivors, at least. For everyone else, there’s always a competitor who actually wants their business.

—A Former New Customer Who Got Tired of Your Nonsense