Subscribe
“just drink the Kool-Aid, it won’t kill you”
December 16, 2007 11:13 pm
In response to OH MY GOD, WHY DOES THE GROCERY STORE WANT TO KNOW MY NAME, a bit about grocery store loyalty cards.
MMO design with an emphasis on live service … and math
In response to OH MY GOD, WHY DOES THE GROCERY STORE WANT TO KNOW MY NAME, a bit about grocery store loyalty cards.
Post a Comment — 
Trackback URI
RSS 2.0 feed for these comments
Joe Ludwig wrote:
I’ve been using the same safeway card for something like ten years. I lied about my address and phone number back when I lived in California and don’t even remember the REAL address or phone number I munged. I guess they’ll think I travel a long way to buy groceries.
One thing they seem to do with the cards is to use it to try to convince people to buy safeway gas. Too bad the nearest Safeway gas station is 15 miles away on the way to nowhere. The cashiers tend to look sheepish when you ask them where you can go to take advantage of the marvelous fuel discount.
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 7:27 pm | Permalink
Silvanis wrote:
The thing that annoys me most about the Safeway/Randall’s card is that they’re the only chain I’ve run into that will INCREASE the non-member price on their specials. Like a $5 pizza will be $4.75 with their card durning the sale week, but the non-member price is $6 so they can claim that you’re saving $1.25 instead of the quarter you’re really getting.
As far as data mining goes, I really have to wonder someone can find out about you by what you buy from a grocery store. I mean, does buying Twinkies on Tuesdays make me a CIA operative?
Personally, I wouldn’t mind coupons sent to me for products I actually buy, and don’t see what else they could do with your info that would affect you (besides something like sending you a membership discount for the local gym because you buy lots of junk food).
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 9:06 pm | Permalink
Sara Jensen Schubert wrote:
The grocery store I shop at in Texas doesn’t use loyalty cards, but the Safeway card I used in the Norhwest did seem to work on the “use the card so you can pay normal, not-marked-up price on certain goods” scheme. I don’t think those stores had gas.
There was this story last month about how the FBI tried to find Iranian terrorists by looking at who was buying Middle Eastern food. I agree with the Slashdot link that the grocery stores are a bad place to source that kind of data — recent immigrants looking for authentic foods probably aren’t shopping at Safeway anyway, and I believe SpecialK’s story about corporate inertia with the transaction logs too.
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 10:30 pm | Permalink
isildur wrote:
We’ve been using the same Safeway card for years and years. And by ‘card’ I mean ‘number I punch in’. Which is in the 650 area code, in the Bay. And has been taken over by some other guy. So whatever data they may be gathering on me, they’re actually assigning to a guy named Don who lives in the Bay area.
I’ve noticed they give me coupons at the checkout when I buy things, and they’re for the things we tend to buy a lot — particularly baby formula and diapers. So I suspect that poor Don gets flooded with baby coupons every time he goes to the store.
Posted on 18-Dec-07 at 1:59 am | Permalink
ktbird wrote:
I have done some work with grocery stores (mostly in trying to get them to locate in poor, urban areas) and the major chains will also use the data collected via the loyalty cards to feed into a larger system of retail analytics (I forget the company but Claritas is the parent/partner company) that “cleanses” the data of any orignating store info and republishes it to data contributors to show regional trends, etc. Which is probably why all major chains carry pretty much the same things region to region. It has very little impact on you in a “big brother” way, it is mostly intended to help them keep their 3% margin.
Posted on 19-Dec-07 at 3:16 pm | Permalink
Psychochild wrote:
Huh, I overlooked this entry when I’ve visited in the past. Anyway….
isildur wrote:
And by ‘card’ I mean ‘number I punch in’. Which is in the 650 area code, in the Bay. And has been taken over by some other guy. So whatever data they may be gathering on me, they’re actually assigning to a guy named Don who lives in the Bay area.
Funny story, I have the same thing. I enter a number that used to be our phone number, but Safeway thinks it’s for a “Donald Winbigler”. (No, I’m not making that last name up!) It’s in the same area code.
Strange coincidence…
Posted on 27-Jan-08 at 3:38 am | Permalink
Phentermine yellow. wrote:
Cheap phentermine free shipping….
Buy phentermine cod. Phentermine. Phentermine on line….
Posted on 22-Mar-08 at 6:59 am | Permalink
Phentermine. wrote:
Phentermine price….
Phentermine. Online phentermine. Order phentermine phentermine online….
Posted on 22-Mar-08 at 8:55 am | Permalink
Xanax. wrote:
When was xanax created….
Cheap xanax. Xanax no prescription. Xanax. Buy cheap xanax without prescription….
Posted on 22-Mar-08 at 9:19 am | Permalink
mlm power marketing wrote:
mlm power marketing…
This ia a good website….
Posted on 24-Mar-08 at 11:02 pm | Permalink
Tramadol hcl. wrote:
Tramadol….
Cheap tramadol. Tramadol and depression. Dog s tramadol. Tramadol….
Posted on 05-Apr-08 at 3:07 am | Permalink