CanadianTire Funny Money

If you live in Canada, I am sure many of us have been shopping at CanadianTire and know about CanadianTire Money. Typically, if you buy something at CanadianTire, they will give you certain amount of CanadianTire money as a coupon (at least I think it is a coupon)that you can use towards your future purchase at the store.

But not until today, after I watched the video from CBC Marketplace, I found out that if you want to return something you bought at CanadianTire, you need to return the CanadianTire Money that were given to you. Otherwise, they will simply deduct the amount from the refund you will get from the store.

For example, you bought a toaster for $10 at CanadianTire and got $1 CanadianTire Money. Later, if you want to return that toaster, you need to return the $1 CanadianTire Money as well. What about you lost that $1 funny Money? Too bad, they will only give you $9 back. So CanadianTire is turning their coupon into a legal tender. Is CanadianTire Money a real money? Of course not, you cannot use it at any other stores than CanadianTire. It is simply a marketing method to encourage consumers to buy more from CanadianTire. It has no difference from Shopper’s Points, Air Miles, etc. By doing this, CanadianTire is actually making a force purchase of nothing. They assume that the consumer will use that $1 funny money to purchase something at the store.

In the video, CanadianTire is claiming that they are printing the CanadianTire Money using the same process the legal tender gets printed. But, hey, who cares? We, consumer, did not ask you to do it that way. Just print it the way other stores print their coupons. I am sure all consumers will be equally happy.

In the video, CBC also did a hypothetical calculations. If 10% of the consumers forget to bring back the CanadianTire Money when they return the products, the CanadianTire will ring in $155,000 REAL money each year. If 50%, $775,000; At 90%, the number goes up to 1.4 million REAL money per year!

So don’t lose your CanadianTire Funny Money, it could be REAL money, at least CanadianTire thinks so.