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This journal is available for random discussion topics of interest to the community, with just a few rules:
1) No personal attacks, grumbling about site policy, or complaining about other users and the staff.
2) No racism, bigotry, or culture wars of any kind.
3) No politics of any kind. There are plenty of other places to discuss this topic. Policy discussion is okay, though, as long as it focuses on the issues instead of people or parties. Be sure to follow rule #2 here.
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5) Please be kind to each other.
Otherwise, you're welcome to discuss anything you'd like in this journal.
(Score: 1) by day of the dalek on Thursday September 05 2024, @04:08AM (6 children)
In this case, the spirit of the rules are what matters. You can say whatever you like about digital grocery store coupons and I won't be bothered. I'm just trying to avoid the usual bickering over politics and similar issues, the personal attacks against some users, and the usual arguing about this site and its staff. I didn't think you were close to anywhere crossing any lines with me, so no worries.
I generally agree that digital coupons aren't convenient. I get emails from CVS about those from time to time, and I'll usually just add a bunch of them to my card before visiting the store if I think I might be interested in buying something. Still, I'm not sure I see the point of the coupons instead of just giving the same discounts to everyone with a loyalty card.
My biggest objection to the grocery stores here is that they really seem to like the self checkout machines. I'd much rather have a real person scan my groceries, and I'm willing to pay a bit more if it means those people will continue to have jobs. Tonight, there were four self checkout machines and one checkout line with a real person scanning groceries. I obviously went to the one checkout line with a real person, and it was probably a lot faster than me trying to scan the groceries myself. Self checkout machines are my biggest objection here, and I'd prefer they be abolished everywhere.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2024, @05:36AM (1 child)
About a week ago, there was a sale on watermelon, so I went to the nearest grocery. It was raining, and, as I always do, I grabbed a cart that was sitting in the parking lot and walked it in, to avoid not finding one available inside. As I walked in I grabbed a paper towel and wiped all the rain off the cart. I tossed the damp towel in the cart.
When I got to the produce section, I saw that they had sold out all the watermelons. Since there was another store, a mile down the road, I decided to go there immediately - having bought nothing and checked out nothing. But I thought, I will just walk this cart to the cart queue outside, so another customer might find the now dried cart conveniently.
As I approached the automatic exit doors, the wheels on the cart locked and I couldn't move the cart forward or backward. A red light flashed above the door and an alarm sounded. The AI apparently detected that the used paper towel (which I was going to discard in the bin outside) was being shop-lifted.
I threw my hands up, abandoned the cart in the doorway, and walked away. To hell with your grocery store!
The other store did have watermelon (delicious), and did not have cart-disabling hardware/software AI.
Still, the future look bleaker every day.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 05 2024, @01:12PM
We have AI for that. Just tell the AI to use rose-colored glasses first.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday September 05 2024, @06:37AM (2 children)
Here in France the coupons are usually time limited whereas a loyalty card is not. Having coupons encourages some people to go to the store in order to benefit from the coupons when otherwise they would not visit.
I rarely find anything on a coupon offer that I would usually buy so it also 'encourages' some others to buy stuff that they don't actually need.
In neither case am I actually getting a good deal so most of my coupons are given to a local charity which seems very grateful for them. I'm not sure how they redeem them to benefit from whatever is on offer - perhaps there are homeless people who are desperate for a bag of barbecue charcoal, half price seedlings, or an inflatable head support for air travellers....
Or maybe the French just do coupons differently locally. I do get regular additional discounts on my loyalty cards.
(Score: 1) by day of the dalek on Thursday September 05 2024, @07:01AM (1 child)
An example that comes to mind is HyVee, which is an regional American grocery store chain that is based in Iowa. They have loyalty cards where people can earn discounts on gasoline by making grocery purchases. But there are also discounts on groceries for people with the loyalty cards, and the grocery discounts change from one week to the next. They refer to it as HyVee Perks, and it works pretty much like coupons that are automatically added to the loyalty card.
I'm not sure if HyVee does it, but the loyalty cards could probably be used to enforce limits on the discounts as well. For example, if there was a sale on milk, you might only be able to get the discount on the first two gallons, and then everything else would be full price. Even if you went to another HyVee, the store might be able to keep track that you've already used the discount and make you pay full price on the milk at the other store. I'm not saying that HyVee or other stores should do this, and it might annoy customers, only that it's probably something that could be done with the loyalty cards.
You can certainly make loyalty card discounts temporary. HyVee certainly does that. The part that seems unnecessary with stores like CVS is that I have to go online and specifically add coupons to my card. Just add the coupons automatically, which is pretty much exactly what HyVee does.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 11 2024, @08:49AM
"The part that seems unnecessary with stores like CVS is that I have to go online and specifically add coupons to my card."
So you failed Capitalism 101