Loyalty Cards

New York Magazine published an indictment of supermarket loyalty cards. Can Supermarket Loyalty Cards Cost You Your Freedom?. I think they get it fundamentally wrong.

For one thing, who knew your shopping list could be used against you in court? Loyalty-card data have been subpoenaed: In one case, a Washington man was falsely accused of arson after grocery records indicated he had bought a fire starter. But the real concern is a different kind of self-incrimination. Actuaries have long sought reliable information to predict who is at risk for heart disease and other ailments; the fear is that insurance companies will raise rates for shoppers with bacon and Mallomars habits.

First of all, it is worse to be falsely accused of arson than to have an insurer know more about you. I thought that was rather obvious, but apparently it's not. Second, it's not all that bad if insurers can reward healthy habits and punish unhealthy ones. It's not entirely good, but it's easy enough to point out how it is at least somewhat good.

Fundamentally, I like having grocery stores having more perfect information about my tastes and buying habits. It lets them cater to me. It lets them know what to put on sale to get me to buy something. I like to buy something. Key Food has cabbage on sale for $0.09/lb this week. If I go buy some and then buy everything else I need to make haluski or stuffed cabbage or coleslaw, Key Food wins by using cabbage as a loss-leader to get me to buy more food. But I also win because I am buying things I want to buy for a good price. At its best use, the loyalty cards keep track of what I buy and then give me coupons specifically for those things.

Most every chain grocery and drugstore in the city offers a program, including D’Agostino’s D’AG Rewards, the Food Emporium’s Gold Points, Duane Reade’s Dollar Rewards, Gristede’s Diamond Value Club, and CVS’s ExtraCare. The stores say that the programs are simply used for inventory control and to reward frequent shoppers. Nicholas D’Agostino III, owner-president of D’Agostino Supermarkets, estimates that 75 percent of his shoppers use the card and says, “D’Agostino’s policy is ironclad. We’re not sharing the information with anyone else.” But as CASPIAN’s Vanderlippe points out, “Once the data’s been collected, it has a nasty habit of never going away.”

Well, I wish they would share that information! I wish C-Town and Key Food would notice how many condiments I buy and tell Heinz and other condiment makers to send me condiment coupons to try new condiments.

The only information I don't want them sharing is that I bought fire starter and the government should arrest me. But that's the only sharing of information that this article dismisses.