October 08, 2003
Cool ideas
Grocery discount card mayhem
These silly grocery discount cards have bugged me for a long time. Its not about the customer getting a deal with these cards, its about customers not getting fair prices without them. At least that's how I view them.
Then people get all up in arms about the privacy issues of these cards. While I think there are lots of privacy issues, most consumers don't realize the even dirtier tricks that are being played on them.
Supermarkets obsessively mine all the data they can get their hands on to strategically manipulate the prices in order to maximize their profit. They can see that on a football weekend people wil go out and buy lots of beer. And if they go buy beer they are likely to go get chips too. So, what do they do?? They have a sale on beer and the jack up the prices on chips. Consumers don't see the connection -- all they can think about is cheap beer. Who cares if the chips are expensive??
It's rotten shenanigans like this that bug me, and that is why I really like Rob's Giant BonusCard Swap Meet where people can exchange bar codes for discount cards for Giant supermarkets. Exchanging these cards essentially mucks up the databases that are mined for data that screws you. But, I suspect that lots of people need to participate in this before it starts having any negative effect on the supermarkets.
I guess we'll have to take this one step at a time, right?
Posted by Mayhem at October 8, 2003 02:20 PM
Hrm. I'd participate, except it seems like a trade down for me. In a rare bit of eccentric behavior (for me) I've ranted at store managers at three different chains about CIA databases and human/consumer tracking until they gave me a card without filling out an application.
I would _love_ to trade with someone else who's done the same.
Although, I'd like to point out that I'm clearly more of a capitalist than you are...the pricing shenanigans don't bother me at all. Cheap beer!!!!
I have resisted at getting one of these cards for the longest time. One day one of the cashiers just gave me the card without filling out an application.
So the main thing they have on me is my buying habbits. Hopefully we can partially exchange these cards (I have a full card + 2 keychain cards) and
mess it up. Although, that would only mean that they get an idea of what we all shop for.
One of the issues with having a card without filling out the application is that they can still gather your name,etc from your credit/debit card, when you pay.
One thing I noticed awhile back, and I've always wondered whether they could be held accountable for 'deceptive advertising' was that some of the stores (that at the time didn't do the bonus card thing) would have a banner up saying "you've saved $X in purchasing this item from _store_". If you looked really closely at the price badge, it said "discount good until 12/31/_year_" yet it was only january... "Perpetual discounts" yet advertized as a feature/benefit.
