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In a remarkably uncritical article, The Verge covers how loyalty card data is being used to search for statistical pricing advantages. Loyalty card data is more than just a person's shopping history, but also who they are, how old they are, their income level, their debts, the number of people in their family, where they live, what their religion is, etc. This unprecedented amount of knowledge about the lives of customers as well as their purchasing habits lets supermarkets model the effect of individual pricing changes on a store's total profitability with a 95% accuracy rate.
The Verge calls this use of Big Data techniques "placing the customer at the center of their pricing strategies." But it is really more about exploiting the fact that customers lack the ability for reciprocal analysis of all the merchants available to them. Nobody has the time to survey the inventory and pricing of all the supermarkets in their area on a regular basis. What's worse is that by using loyalty cards, customers are voluntarily giving the supermarkets this advantage over them. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, "They who would give up essential Privacy, to purchase a little temporary Discount, deserve neither Privacy nor Discounts."
(Score: 1) by multisync on Sunday May 04 2014, @03:43PM
An easy way around that is a few minutes of careful listening near the check out counters. It doesn't take long before you hear someone divulging their phone number for the convenience of not having to produce a loyalty card. Just memorize that number for your own use at that store.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Sunday May 04 2014, @04:31PM
"hi, can I talk to jenny, please?"
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday May 04 2014, @07:26PM
I do this all the time with my grandma's phone number, and I'm sure anybody who sees the data is wondering why a 90-pound 90 year-old lady is buying enough booze every weekend to level an elephant.
However -- Some stores here have prevented that, and have been doing so for years. The Ralph's chain is one in America that does. I don't know how exactly they do it, whether or not they tie the Ralph's club account to a name or card or whatever, but what I do know is that entering the phone number of another Ralph's club member doesn't work.
Bastards.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday May 05 2014, @05:34AM
Speaking of Ralph's, I was lucky enough to find one of those loyalty cards a few years ago laying on the sidewalk. I have been using it ever since. Sure, maybe someone else is getting "points" or whatever, but at least I can shop there without getting gouged so hard. Most of the time, I go to Wal-Mart because the closer grocery stores want to force "the card" on me. I know that in their way of thinking, getting me to adopt their card is far more important to their business model than whether I go to their store or the Wal-Mart.
Once some businesses get large enough, customers are just statistics, no longer a necessary ingredient of the business model. The Waltons have made a fortune accepting the customers that other businesses no longer wanted.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by aclarke on Monday May 05 2014, @12:53PM
Unless you're paying with cash, they still know exactly who you are now.