What to make of all the hullaballoo over grocery store loyalty cards?
The two largest chains here now both offer/require loyalty card programs: the visible part of the deal is that your card is used a token to track your purchase history and use that information to sell more stuff. In a perfect world, this echoes the small town or neighborhood grocer who knew his clientele well enough to know how best to keep his customers coming back.
But the non-visible part of it is the fear that somewhere in some windowless room, statisticians and analysts are poring over various extracts from all these transactions in hopes of using that information as yet another asset, along with the stores, warehouses and trucks. The most recent chain to join this trend — QFC — pledges not to sell or disclose this information to anyone, even within their own company. But with QFC owned by Kroger (located several states away in Ohio and therefore harder to picket) who knows how strenuously that rule will be enforced? Kroger also owns Fred Meyer, a regional chain of the hypermart model: if Freddies offers a card, will my QFC history be linked to that?
I’m inclined to think this really is a move toward improving service and efficiency: I want it to be a Good Thing. But there are lingering doubts.
I’m not sure the prices are actually better for card holders. I mean, sure, $4 for 4 pounds of strawberries (non-club price: $10) is hard to beat, but it seem plausible that this was just a loss leader to get people to sign up.