Green Shield Stamps
| Industry | Trading stamps |
|---|---|
| Fate | ceased trading |
| Founded | 1958 |
| Defunct | 1991 |
| Headquarters | United Kingdom |
|
Key people
|
Richard Tompkins, Founding chairman and managing director |
Green Shield Stamps was a British sales promotion scheme that rewarded shoppers with stamps that could be used to buy gifts from a catalogue or from any affiliated retailer. The scheme was introduced in 1958 by Richard Tompkins, who had noticed the success of the long-established Sperry & Hutchinson Green Stamps in America.
For a few years, the scheme was so widely adopted that it was referenced in pop songs. But it suffered when Tesco ceased to use it, as part of a price-cutting policy that became standard nationwide. To retain business, Green Shield allowed customers to buy gifts from the catalogue with a mix of stamps and cash, but soon the catalogue became cash-only, and the operation was re-branded as Argos. Stamps were withdrawn altogether in 1991.
Trading stamps first became popular in the United States. Sperry & Hutchinson began offering stamps to United States retailers in 1896. They bought stamps from S&H and gave them as bonuses with every purchase based on the amount purchased. The stamps were given away at filling stations, corner shops and supermarkets. When the customer had collected sufficient stamps in collectors' books, the shopper claimed merchandise from a catalogue or S&H Green Stamps shop.
Richard Tompkins purchased the name Green Shield from a luggage manufacturer and founded Green Shield Trading Stamp Co in 1958, along similar lines to S&H Green Stamps. They were popular during the 1960s and 1970s. Competing trading stamp schemes included Pink Stamps (a UK operation of S&H Green Stamps), British consumer co-operatives' dividend stamps, Blue Chip and the short-lived UK operation of King Korn.
In the early 1960s Green Shield built a new headquarters office block in Station Road, Edgware, Middlesex (a suburb on the north-west London fringe). With the end of Green Shield Stamps, the block was renamed Premier House.
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