Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian Supermarkets can use your card details to learn more about you. ![]() We use it to measure the effectiveness of promotions and events." "It means we know when customers are lapsing because we won't see their card for a week. "We know that an anonymised card number paid for a particular basket of groceries one week and how much was spent with the same card number the following week," says a Morrisons spokesperson. What if you haven't given the supermarkets your personal details?Įven if you haven't handed over your details and product preferences through a loyalty scheme, it's likely you have used a debit or credit card to pay for your shopping at some point – and this is another way that the supermarkets can track what we buy. Clubcard TV director Scott Deutrom boasted on his blog that "we can target adverts based on what our customers bought yesterday" (a Tesco spokesperson later claimed this was just "a vision" at the moment).Ī few days ago it emerged Tesco also plans to use its Clubcard data to tackle obesity, and "wants to see whether customers would welcome tailored suggestions for how they could shop more healthily" – which could mean vouchers for healthier products or suggested recipes (customers would need to opt in, it says). Launched in March, this streaming site also offers TV shows such as The Only Way is Essex, and is available to anyone with a computer and a broadband connection.īut in order to tune in, you have to register your Clubcard number and postcode. Tesco, meanwhile, is using data about what its 16 million Clubcard holders buy in its stores to serve targeted ads to online users of its new free movie service, Clubcard TV. Last month the supermarket giant announced it was taking full control of Sainsbury's Bank by buying the 50% it didn't already own – partly because its data showed that after taking out a bank product, Sainsbury's shoppers became more loyal and spent more in-store. Tesco plans to use Clubcard data to target specific foods at customers. They can then change what you see when you log in to make it easier to find the products their data suggests you will buy, and in-store they will use their data to make decisions about what they sell.įor example, Sainsbury's discovered that a cereal brand called Grape-Nuts was worth stocking – despite weak sales – because the shoppers who bought it were extremely loyal to Sainsbury's and often big spenders. If you have a loyalty card or shop online, the supermarkets will build up a demographic profile of you, and collect data about how loyal you are, what you buy and how much you spend, says Guy Montague-Jones of The Grocer. If you have opted out of taking out a loyalty card because you don't want "Big Brother in your shopping basket", then too bad, because the supermarkets also track debit and credit card payment data and till receipts – so someone, somewhere, knows about that bottle of wine you bought at 12.28pm on Tuesday, and that you recently switched your brand of athlete's foot cream. We are all familiar with targeted offers linked to loyalty cards, but you might be surprised at the amount of data the big retailers collect on all of their shoppers – and even potential customers – and what they do with it. ![]() These are just two of the ways the supermarket giants are planning to make use of the data they gather on us.įor every loyalty point or coupon that Sainsbury's, Tesco and the like dish out, they gobble up a huge amount of information about our shopping habits.
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