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posted by martyb on Monday May 04 2015, @07:57AM   Printer-friendly
from the turkeys dept.

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.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Monday May 04 2015, @04:27PM

    by The Archon V2.0 (3887) on Monday May 04 2015, @04:27PM (#178583)

    > It should be illegal, really.

    Making any form of corporate data collection illegal is rare. And I'm not even talking about lobbyists pushing against it. I'm talking about the fact that the government likes having data it can subpoena when it needs it. Why pay for surveillance when you can get a free ride from someone else doing the same thing?

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday May 04 2015, @09:16PM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday May 04 2015, @09:16PM (#178779) Journal

    Furthermore, making it illegal would be counter productive.

    If you buy at a store, you probably would be interested in having those things you buy in stock the next time you visit. If the store can look to purchases and notice larger numbers of product X being bought every friday afternoon, they can make sure there is more there on friday than any other day.

    I've gotten notifications from Krogers and Costco about food recalls on purchases I've made. They never send me any other spam, so I'm fine.

    If you open a loyalty card with a business you do it for the benefits. Making it illegal would just stupid.

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    • (Score: 2) by http on Tuesday May 05 2015, @04:06AM

      by http (1920) on Tuesday May 05 2015, @04:06AM (#178953)

      No store needs to ID you to know their inventory.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @04:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @04:23PM (#179141)

    Why pay for surveillance when you can get a free ride from someone else doing the same thing?

    Not to mention that pesky laws and constitutions can prevent government from being able to do surveillance in the first place, yet no such protections for the public exist against corporations. Yet another way capitalism subverts democracy.