Hardly any physical sales stamps anymore, Jumbo also stops 11:21 in Economy The end of an era is getting closer: physical sales stamps are almost nowhere available at the counter. But digital is still being saved.

Licking sales stamps and then cashing in after your entire booklet has been pasted: it’s almost a thing of the past. Today supermarket chain Jumbo also stops issuing physical sales stamps.

Customers can still continue to save online. The supermarket reports that this is preferable because saving online is more sustainable than physical stickers. It is also less hassle for the supermarkets, for example, counterfeit stamps were sometimes handed in. Consumers can redeem their physical stamps until the end of April 2028.

With the decision, Jumbo follows Albert Heijn, Vomar and Dekamarkt, among others, where no real stamps have been sold at the checkout for some time. The Coop still issues purchase stamps and with the Plus customers have a choice between saving physical or online stamps. The Aldi, Lidl and Dirk have never used sales stamps.

Purchase stamps and savings stickers have a long history in the Netherlands:

Although the sales stamps are slowly disappearing from the supermarkets, they are popular digitally. “I never saved with those books, I actually always associated that pasting with older people,” says Jasmijn Ansinger (21). “But with the app you save automatically, that’s very easy.” Her sister and some of her friends also save the stamps.

Another thing that speaks for sales stamps: they yield a relatively large amount of money. For example, at Albert Heijn you get six percent interest on a full digital savings card. With the Plus it is even fifty percent: with every euro spent on groceries you can buy a ‘PLUS point’ for two cents and after handing in a full savings card – which costs four euros – you will receive six euros. If you compare that with the current savings interest rates, you can earn a relatively large amount with purchase stamps: ING, for example, does not yet offer a percentage of savings interest.

“You hardly get any interest on the bank,” says Jasmijn. “But at Albert Heijn I already have almost two booklets full.” According to research by Albert Heijn, a third of their customers have purchase stamps in their app.

The transition to digital sales stamps could be difficult for the elderly, thinks retail expert Cor Molenaar, professor of eMarketing at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. “They have more problems with apps. That resistance already starts with some people just over fifty.”

He doesn’t think this is a big deal: he calls sales stamps “past glory” in these times of high inflation. “Customers now mainly choose a supermarket with lower prices than one with sales stamps.”

They are more likely to go to Aldi, for example, where they do not have stamps, than to the more expensive Albert Heijn, where they do offer sale stamps, he explains. “But if two supermarkets are both close to you and cheap, then such a savings program can play a role again.”