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I was alerted to two stories regarding grocery stores, data mining, and apps from Franz Dill at The Eponymous Pickle. First, Kroger acquired "customer science" company dunnhumbyUSA last week with the goal of boosting their "Customer 1st" strategy:
Continuing dunnhumbyUSA's work, [new subsidiary] 84.51° mines mountains of customer transactions via Kroger's loyalty card program to figure out what shoppers want.
84.51° helps Kroger to thoughtfully evaluate what products to stock, expand or discontinue. The firm's insights are also used to send coupons relevant to shoppers' habits, such as issuing pet food offers to customers who actually buy pet food.
Aitken says noted 95 percent of Kroger's growth in the last decade has come from winning more business from existing customers – which is a smarter, most cost-effective way to do business. He notes too many industries – from mobile carriers to cable TV providers – chase after new customers with one-time incentives that ultimately encourage switching, not customer loyalty.
Also, Winn-Dixie is releasing a mobile app that features:
..."personalized" digital coupons, all stored on your smartphone or other electronic device. Winn-Dixie, a subsidiary of Bi-Lo Holdings, partnered with Coupons.com for this new savings system, which sends you cyber coupons based on your own shopping preferences.
The Winn-Dixie app also features a virtual shopping list and fuelperks rewards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @12:08PM
Kroger forces the loyalty card by having two prices - one without ($5 for ice cream) wnd one with ($3.50 for same ice cream). Or Milk, Eggs ....
But the loyalty card does nothing to help them get the right products to the shelves. Like fresh vegetables - Mejeirs in our area has fresh vegetables locked. Kroger just keeps raising prices and shrinking offering. Even in the brand new super store they built, now been removing the clothing and other sections.
Mining only shows the past. The past is no the future. Just like the daily junk mail and ads that pop up on the internet. I lookd at hard drive last week, so this week they show more hard drives. Not at much lower prices, not at better quality, not at better size or speed. Those may get me to buy, it is the same junk that I saw and deside that it was not worth it because...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @01:21PM
Kroger forces the loyalty card by having two prices - one without ($5 for ice cream) wnd one with ($3.50 for same ice cream).
The only winning move is not to play: The Discount Grocery Cards That Don't Save You Money [wsj.com]
My experience in the Boston area is that Market Basket has the best customer service, the best prices and great selection. They don't have cards and are very profitable (for a grocery). [bizjournals.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday May 04 2015, @02:48PM
I've thought for a while that a card trading app would be a great thing. I don't really have the chops to do it though, so for anyone who does, I'd like to be customer #1. Here's how it would work:
Users would upload a card to the system -- each user must upload at least one card, at least early on. You walk into StoreX, open up the app, request a loyalty card, one is randomly assigned to you and then locked for 5 minutes or until you release it to prevent duplicate usage in disparate locations at the exact same time, you buy your stuff, release the card.
You could make it GPS enabled to select a card base on position, but I'd want the not GPS enabled version as that whole location tracking thing is anti-privacy. No ads. Either make it free, or make it for pay, but fuck the ads. No permissions other than network connection.
There is no way to make these systems go away except to mung the data. In fact, poisoned data is probably worse than no data.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @03:00PM
> There is no way to make these systems go away except to mung the data.
Well you could go all rube goldberg on it...
Or you could just shop elsewhere and save money in the process. [wsj.com]
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday May 04 2015, @03:56PM
That only works if there is an elsewhere without a loyalty card. Doesn't exist in my area.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @04:03PM
Where do you live?
Must be a tiny little town.
In the US, most of those places have a super-walmart.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday May 04 2015, @04:08PM
We do have a walmart. I won't shop there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @11:31PM
> We do have a walmart. I won't shop there.
I'll take a walmart over loyalty-card grocery every day.
In fact I often do.
Towns like that also tend to have farmers markets / roadside stands.
Depending on the area of the country you might also have ALDI and Save-A-Lot.
Target might be an option too, but they are kind of in between because they have a credit card that is 5% off on all purchases. It isn't the same thing as weekly "sales" on specific items though.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 13 2015, @07:09PM
Only works if the loyalty card uses a magnet strip? Otoh, perhaps RFID can be emulated too?
But chip cards requires a bit of effort..