What Do You Buy At The Grocery ... Punk?

fifths writes: "I'm not sure how many of you saw this story from the Scripps Howard Washington bureau -- as reported in the 'Washington Calling' column in the 10-07-2001 edition of the Knoxville(TN) News-Sentinel: 'Federal agents are tracking suspects tied to the Sept. 11 strikes through supermarket club cards that may give a hint of ethnic tastes. "Time was, this data was so disorganized nobody could make sense of it, but not anymore. They're looking for people based on their supermarket tastes," says consultant Larry Ponemon, head of the Privacy Council business consortium.' Anyone else bothered by this? Burn your supermarket cards." Better yet, trade your supermarket cards, frequently. (Perhaps with friends or relatives in the furthest city with the same chain?) Maybe Larry Ellison would like to have a few.

Comments

Card Trading

[waldoj]

I have no idea of where my supermarket cards came from. You know how when you sign up, they give you a few? I've gotten friends to give me all of my cards. Whenever, in conversation, topic turns to shopping, I explain why these are Bad Things(tm), and suggest that card-swapping would help. We always swap cards, and they're always eager to do so with others. It's not just me -- my whole family actually does this, and many of my friends now. And some people that I tell about this say that they already know about it, which makes me feel a bit like going to a strange town and finding out that there's already a fight club.

Anyhow, yes, trade away! Destroy their databases and go buy some ethnic food. It'll be fun.

-Waldo

Don't play the game

[rgmoore]

Better yet, trade your supermarket cards, frequently. (Perhaps with friends or relatives in the furthest city with the same chain?) Maybe Larry Ellison would like to have a few.

An even better idea is simply to avoid the cards in the first place. Accepting the card is essentially selling the store your profiling information for a discount. It's sleazy to break your half of the bargain by deliberately contaminating their data while expecting them to keep to their side by continuing to provide discounts. If you hate the things so much just refuse to accept one and pay cash (so that they can't track purchases by credit card number). Even better, skip the whole game by shopping at a store like Trader Joe's that refuses to have such a program in the first place.

Re:Don't play the game

[camusflage]

It's sleazy to break your half of the bargain by deliberately contaminating their data while expecting them to keep to their side by continuing to provide discounts.

It's even sleazier to jack up the prices on items and offer "discounts" for people who use the cards when the discounted price is what the retail price should be. One rather nasty example of this that I saw recently was where a commodity item (a tube of toothpaste) was marked "Buy One Get One Free" with the card, where the price for the single unit was twice what comparable brands were selling for.

Re:Don't play the game

[camusflage]

So trying to get customer loyalty is a bad thing?

No, it's not. What is a bad thing is dicking over people who don't use them (me) by jacking up the prices and offering "discounts" that bring the price back in line.

how do you expect to get customers to keep coming to your store if you can't track them?

How about this for a novel concept: Sell things for an everyday low price. When lowered market demand or locally prevailing conditions dictate, offer a discounted price (the pros sometimes call this "a sale").

I know that grocery is a horrible business to be in. You're operating on a 1-3% margin. Forcing consumers to chose between getting fucked over privacy-wise (for those who submit to being profiled) or getting fucked over financially (by not getting the ephemeral "discounts", and paying the artificially inflated price) is what is wrong about the cards.

If it was about loyalty, then all the cards would track is that you were in the store, and perhaps what you spent. If it was about profit (from the data), then the cards would record who you are, where you live, what you buy, and when you buy it. They can't yet track what made you buy it (or, should I say, not anymore--cuecat), but once cheap cybernetic links are available, I'm sure they'll offer the same "discounts" for them as well.

Re:Find a local grocery that *doesn't* use cards

[Technician]

I found there is a cost to the database, which is of course passed along to consumers. (Serious now, who do you think pays for it?) I have found out long ago that most stores that do not have the program have lower average prices all the time. It just isn't worth the trip to the high priced store just to see what the K-mart style special item is this week. I save lots more elsewhere without the cost of the database program added to the cost of the products. I quit shopping Safeway because the noticable differance in the bottom line. A 3.50 item with a savings of .75 is still more than the same item at 2.50 elsewhere.

Forgetting your card

[Christopher Bibbs]

I've found that most grocery stores have a store card they'll swipe if you've forgotten yours (and I forget mine a lot). There are ways to dodge data gathering or pollute their information about you. The trick is to find the ethical route that also lets them know how you feel.

One Thing

[snubber1]

Pop quiz time: How many of you here have Costco memberships? Plenty I'm sure. They got cheap everything there, a deal for everyone. Now guess who does some of the most aggressive marketing analysis based on what you buy and when?

Don't forget you PAY for this privilege.