Supermarket abuse of pricing?

They want to track what people are buying and sell it on to Ad companies. It's always the reason behind these schemes. At some point they'll get hacked and everyone's data stolen.

Always thought up by some salesman who doesn't understand things like cyber security.
 
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MikeTimbers said:
My wife was a self-checkout supervisor at a huge JS where there was a good thirty yards from the self-checkouts to the exit. She was given no headset and told never to leave the checkouts so how was she supposed to tell the security at the exits that someone hasn't paid properly? The management did not care. All the other colleagues who she worked with told her to never try to intervene.

My point about "shrink" is that theft is not a big problem generally in the big supermarkets.
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I'm not sure if you're replying to my response to you, or just making a general statement. I guess either way, all I was saying is - that's not the case for all supermarket chains.
 
AndyCr15 said:
in some stores it's taken quite personally and staff will actually go to quite some lengths to stop these... people... getting away with it, on principal.
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Had one female worker taking the fact I did not scan my plastic bag way too personally and seriously. Started telling me I did not scan it as I finished paying on the SS. I ignored her and carried on walking to the exit where the security guard was. She shouted over to him 'He didn't scan his carrier bag!!!11' and he did the same - completely ignored her and didn't move a muscle as I walked out.

And yes I justify not paying for the bag as the previous day I bought something without checking the date (it was a very small item) and when I got home , about to open it, I saw the date, it had expired about 2 months previously... And that's not an isolated incident. Many times I had to tell them in store about expired food still on the shelves. The workers couldn't care less.
 
Nasher said:
They want to track what people are buying and sell it on to Ad companies. It's always the reason behind these schemes. At some point they'll get hacked and everyone's data stolen.

Always thought up by some salesman who doesn't understand things like cyber security.
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Good lord, no they don't.

This 'selling data to ad companies' thing is such crap, it is illegal to sell or buy customer data, so large company will not be doing that.

They will be using the data to create models, targeted audiences within Ad platforms, lookalikes, etc.

Even ignoring the legalities, why on earth would they give their propriety customer data away when a competitor might pick it up.

No large companies would actively try and mess with GDPR, the fines are insane.
 
Nasher said:
They want to track what people are buying and sell it on to Ad companies. It's always the reason behind these schemes. At some point they'll get hacked and everyone's data stolen.

Always thought up by some salesman who doesn't understand things like cyber security.
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BS. They don't. Period. Sufficient fines to take them out of business.

If you can prove they do, go to the ICO and make a complaint.
 
Nasher said:
They want to track what people are buying and sell it on to Ad companies. It's always the reason behind these schemes. At some point they'll get hacked and everyone's data stolen.

Always thought up by some salesman who doesn't understand things like cyber security.
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In many cases it will be for their own internal purposes. They use data for targetting specific discounts, for instance I very rarely do a big shop at Sainsbury's, they're system has noticed this and I always get vouchers for money off a shop over £60. They know I probably do a big shop somewhere and want a piece of the action.

The worry is that we'll see discounts being withdrawn from very loyal customers or those who don't own or know how to use smart phones. This will have a disproportionate effect on the elderly and those on low incomes.
 
MikeTimbers said:
BS. They don't. Period. Sufficient fines to take them out of business.
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maybe gdpr put a stop to it, but V - answering my earlier comment about tracking debit cards -

"All the large grocers track payment cards in this way," says Matthew Harrop at data analysis firm emnos. "All your till receipts are linked together using either a known customer identifier – or anonymously in the absence of a loyalty card – to analyse what you're buying and how loyal you are."

Waitrose and Asda also admit analysing aggregated payment card data to monitor "customer shopping patterns" (for example, items purchased) over time. Both stress this is common practice in the retail industry and that card numbers are not connected to an individual or an address. Sainsbury's and Tesco say they do not track or monitor their customers' payment cards.

The supermarkets also want to find out what their customers are doing outside their stores. Waitrose, for example, paid data analytics firm Beyond Analysis to use "aggregated and anonymised data" about shoppers' Visa card transactions to help it decide on new store locations.

Beyond Analysis integrated the Visa transaction data with Waitrose's own data to figure out what proportion of potential customers were buying groceries from other supermarkets, and the general locations of these competitors.
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Waitrose has my photo too, if I go to self checkout, so could mix age/BMI? into this data;

Aggregated&anonymised hmmh, also part of googles lingua franca, but cross correlating metadata it doesn't take much to triangulate someone.
if private health care takes over in the UK they could maybe use the data to calculate insurance premiums, but otherwise, difficult to think of subversive ways to use it ?
 
Some (possibly healthy) paranoia in this thread. I genuinely fail to see how this hurts anyone.

Let's suppose there is this giant database in Tesco of ClubCard users and all of their baskets. It also has all the other baskets of course. It has numbers that represent but aren't credit card numbers attached to the baskets and to customers and sometimes attempts to create "households" of connected customers. This database is used to see what sells where, and how much of it. This is used to stock stores appropriately with items and quantities that match local demand.

This database is also connected to marketing systems that can apply parameters to a search to create lists of email addresses to send marketing to. It may also be used to rate customers by spend which rating may then be visible in the customer service system for the service people to see who they're talking to. That may also have things like social media presence ratings.

One thing this database is not used for: Tesco staff do not use it to look you up. They really don't give a toss about you as an individual, you're just not that interesting.

What it also isn't, is "shared". Tesco guard this data extremely carefully because to do otherwise would destroy them.There is no "central" database run by "them" who use it to control the population.
 
precisely, Tesco’s club card data is only really valuable to a handful of organisations which are mainly their competitors.
 
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K.C. Leblanc said:
The worry is that we'll see discounts being withdrawn from very loyal customers or those who don't own or know how to use smart phones. This will have a disproportionate effect on the elderly and those on low incomes.
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I never do a big shop at Sainsbury. They are useful for clothes particularly at half price. They sell a bottled Maggi sauce that I like. Other than that it is impulse buys when I am in for one thing or another.

And yes my phone does not do apps. :D (not that I don't know how to use them with an android tablet).
 
MikeTimbers said:
All the fraud/theft that happens at the self-checkouts is well understood by the stores. They factor this into their efficiency models for the reduced labour and have decided that it is cheaper to have the self-checkouts. The staff that "patrol" the self-checkouts are told not to intervene if they spot theft and also have no means to easily notify the security guards. The stores would rather lose a bottle or two of JD than have a violent altercation near other customers.

Theft is one element of what is known as "shrink". This is losses from unexplained stock disappearance, ie theft or incorrect pricing. "Waste" is spoiled or returned or out of date product.

In my days with JS, the largest contribution to shrink by a single item was not theft of JD or any kind of theft but in fact caused by the weigh scales at the tills being ever so slightly too small to easily weigh loose leeks meaning that sometimes on end was on the surround of the scales meaning the full weight was not recorded and the customer undercharged. Supermarkets are strange places .
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Doesnt surprise me, have seen videos of people shoplifting right in the open and staff just stand there, including security. Just walking into store, emptying a self then walking out.

Opposite to what I see in America where you get manhandled instead.

Self checkouts must be having people doing fraud, its just too tempting for human nature.
 
Nasher's talking nonsense?

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I might be overanalyzing things but I've noticed a massive increase in yellow stickers over the last month or two. Not sure if supermarkets are getting stuck with unsold stock due to their price rises or whether this is some form of underhanded nonsense to get us consumers to buy more stuff but it's certainly been more noticeable!
 
Diddums said:
I might be overanalyzing things but I've noticed a massive increase in yellow stickers over the last month or two. Not sure if supermarkets are getting stuck with unsold stock due to their price rises or whether this is some form of underhanded nonsense to get us consumers to buy more stuff but it's certainly been more noticeable!
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The yellow sticker man is hunting you down.
 
Diddums said:
I might be overanalyzing things but I've noticed a massive increase in yellow stickers over the last month or two. Not sure if supermarkets are getting stuck with unsold stock due to their price rises or whether this is some form of underhanded nonsense to get us consumers to buy more stuff but it's certainly been more noticeable!
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Dude same, I thought it was just chance and that I've ventured into Sainsbury's more than usual. But thinking about it I've consistently scored dinner by looking for yellow stickers lately. Sainsbury's seems to have it all over the place in amongst normal stock, whereas Morrisons it's select areas.
 
Diddums said:
I might be overanalyzing things but I've noticed a massive increase in yellow stickers over the last month or two. Not sure if supermarkets are getting stuck with unsold stock due to their price rises or whether this is some form of underhanded nonsense to get us consumers to buy more stuff but it's certainly been more noticeable!
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Are the discounts good though? 25p off a £3 item is hardly worth it. 25p off a 50p item is good though. :D
 
Hagar said:
I never do a big shop at Sainsbury. They are useful for clothes particularly at half price. They sell a bottled Maggi sauce that I like. Other than that it is impulse buys when I am in for one thing or another.

And yes my phone does not do apps. :D (not that I don't know how to use them with an android tablet).
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Authentic Indian Hot and Sweet Sauce? :)
 
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