1,050 grocery carts, gone in 15 seconds

For a moment, it looked like there was a star-studded movie premiere happening. Or like a new version of iPod was going to be released. The scene was straight out of those wire photos of people camping outside a store to wait for opening hours.

The lines sneaked across from outside Shangri-La Plaza Mall’s Rustan’s Department Store, that part with the escalators for grocery carts going down to Rustan’s Supermarket, and several loops into the parking lot.

People were lining up for Rustan’s Supermarket and Citibank’s “One Night Only Sale” exclusive to Citibank Gold and Platinum cardholders. For only one night — actually for only four hours on a Wednesday night, 8 p.m. to 12 midnight  — Rustan’s Supermarket was giving away food items like rice and steaks at 50 percent off (yes, it was a buy-one, take-one offer), fresh produce at discounted prices, canned goods, dry items, and wines and alcohol, dairy and cheeses. Everything was practically on sale, the only question was by how much and what you needed to buy.

Crickette Tantoco, Rustan’s Supercenters Inc. vice president for marketing and merchandising, said they had to get additional carts from Rustan’s Fresh in Starmall, across the street from Shangri-La Plaza Mall, and Shopwise in Libis. The supermarket at Shang has an average of 650 grocery carts. By the time the additions were in, there was a total of 1,050 carts and they were gone in 15 seconds!

Or in the words of a crazed movie fan: “Dinumog!”

It was only November 28 but as Citibank’s Mon del Rosario pointed out, “Christmas starts in the Philippines as early as November and it’s that time of the season — three weeks before Christmas Day — when people hold a lot of parties and need to do bulk buying.”

Citibank has over one million credit cardholders (just a little below 1.5 according to Mon) and the event was exclusive to those in the top-tier or affluent category — the Gold and Platinum cardholders, a majority of whom have been Citibank clients for years while some own businesses and hence hold parties for their employees. They also have higher credit limits (Gold cardholders have up to P650,000 depending on their need; Platinum can go up to P2 million). The invitations were sent out through snail mail, e-mail and SMS, and you had to have one to get in.

Neither Rustan’s nor Citibank was surprised at the outcome. Rustan’s after all, held the first of such event for the Rockwell community earlier in the year, and the second one, this time in partnership with Citibank, at Rustan’s Fresh in Makati.

At the Makati sale, they achieved the average day’s sale in three hours. At Shangri-La, they predicted that the four-hour sale would have equaled two days.

Everybody was turned into a guerrilla shopper — fast and furious and with an eye out for the best bargains. People were lining up for sacks of rice — at 50 percent off! Me, what I spotted were the great discounts in the refrigerators —  microwavable meals, sausages, poultry, steaks and cheeses —  and the wine and spirits shelves with bottles from Sweden, Russia and, of course, France and Australia. And then the chicheria  for parties — imported ones like stuffed pretzels and local ones like my favorite Oishi wasabe potato chips. The practical stuff was also going fast — household items for cleaning (yes, you do have to clean up the week before and the day after Christmas), laundry and personal care. I got treats for my dogs, too —  Dentabone for Freeway and Alleway, and Cesar wet food.

Of course, it did take time to line up to pay for one’s purchases (an hour at least) given the amount of people shopping. But still, the bargains were worth it. Rustan’s also added people to the counters — some personnel worked double shifts — so they didn’t run out of staffers to help you take your grocery bags to your vehicle. 

If they did this a week before Christmas, nobody would have come out alive!

Mon added that the secret to the success of their One Night Only Sale was that two strong organizations were behind it. “This is a team effort. We sat down with our partners at Rustan’s and told them we wanted to do something for our cardholders. Rustan’s has done an excellent job in putting out products and services, and like Citibank it’s tremendously successful in setting up a loyal customer base. When you put great customer management with a sale, you naturally end up with this outcome. Both organizations put their customers ahead of everything and everyone else.”

So what’s next for Gold and Platinum cardholders? “We’re always looking to add to their privileges. I think in the next couple of months, we will have more promos like this. This is just the beginning.”

So for four hours on a Wednesday night, 26 days before Christmas, it was a mad, mad midnight sale. You’d have been crazy to pass it up.