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The takeaway here is that quite a few companies with a behaviorist on tap have managed to sell the idea that they have the one true key to sorting a company's customers. As with so many such approaches, it's a few scoops of validated lab science thinned to serving consistency with BS, voodou and fairy dust.
There are other things to be far more fearful of, or get angry about.
You don't only have to worry about a credit score, you also have a secret customer score to determine your financial value to a company. Who knew?
What did you think "reward cards" were?
Businesses know exactly what you buy and when you buy it.
I can tell you for a fact that in the near future, at least at grocery stores, the price tags will be digital, and not stickers. They'll be able to change the price of any item or every item in the store in a matter of seconds. Price changes will be triggered by peak shopping periods to maximize their profits.
Anyway, that is a consumer report as defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and you're entitled to a free copy once a year, so request yours if you want.
I opt out of reward cards, as I am concerned that having them would result in a barrage of mail, telephone, and Email spam. Any savings would be more than offset by the aggravation.
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That's not a secret. For most online sales this is rather obvious. Just do some research and click on an item and you will get lots of popups showing it and similar items for sale on social media and other apps.
A very low-grade form of this scoring system. The stores that issue them rarely use the data except in the grossest way; it's a commodity sold or traded upstream to the conglomerates and MA firms. But it's still pretty crude compared to the OP is talking about.
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Businesses know exactly what you buy and when you buy it.
Do they, now.
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I can tell you for a fact that in the near future, at least at grocery stores, the price tags will be digital, and not stickers. They'll be able to change the price of any item or every item in the store in a matter of seconds. Price changes will be triggered by peak shopping periods to maximize their profits.
Pricing has been electronic for close to two decades; changing a product price is two minutes on a console that will automatically spit out a new shelf tag. You are right to some degree that shelf pricing will be... if not digital displays, at least somehow more flexible so that storewide price changes can be implemented. I think we're a long ways from it becoming common, though. The current move (and a far more dangerous one) is to "checkoutless" stores.
Not possible or practical in many cases. Particularly for groceries, it can be a 20-25% net difference over a week's shopping, because so many staple items are "reward" priced.* For the oddball or infrequent purchase, yes, you can opt not to use that discount and it's often worth the modest cost on many levels.
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...as I am concerned that having them would result in a barrage of mail, telephone, and Email spam. Any savings would be more than offset by the aggravation.
An empty argument against rewards programs. No legitimate business can send you email or call you without you opting in; I have yet to see a reward or loyalty program that required your accepting such contact as a part of participation. You sign up, you tell them no on one to five categories of contact, and if you get anything automatically, you unsubscribe. Done.
The reason to reject tracking is for far more important and widespread reasons, not spam. But we're on the verge of it becoming irrelevant, anyway. I'd bet that only retailer addicted to old, low-tech solutions for the wrong reasons will have "rewards cards" in five to ten years.
* My loathing for Safeway began when the neighborhood one, the second most convenient grocery store in my area, had "member" pricing on nearly everything in the store. For things like wine, it was nearly a 50% discount (or 100% markup, depending on your point of view). No one sane could or would shop there without a card. Most grocery stores are a little more rational, but a card typically saves me $3-5 a trip, and I shop frugally for one these days.
Businesses know exactly what you buy and when you buy it.
I can tell you for a fact that in the near future, at least at grocery stores, the price tags will be digital, and not stickers. They'll be able to change the price of any item or every item in the store in a matter of seconds. Price changes will be triggered by peak shopping periods to maximize their profits.
Anyway, that is a consumer report as defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and you're entitled to a free copy once a year, so request yours if you want.
Except that in many states laws require prices to be on shelves of grocery stores/supermarkets.
Laws further state if price on shelf says one thing, but scans or whatever at the register another customer must be given the "shelf" price. This usually is lower and myself have used this quite often. It's not my fault someone put a sale sticker/item in the wrong place, and or otherwise mislabeled.
Except that in many states laws require prices to be on shelves of grocery stores/supermarkets.
Laws further state if price on shelf says one thing, but scans or whatever at the register another customer must be given the "shelf" price. This usually is lower and myself have used this quite often. It's not my fault someone put a sale sticker/item in the wrong place, and or otherwise mislabeled.
Well, we're in the wrong era to be smugly boasting about consumer protections.
I can see pressure from the retailing industry to allow "more informative" shelf pricing methods that conform to the letter of this requirement and resolution while allowing mass retailers to use digital tags that make the protection meaningless. That is, you pick up a can of beans at $1.25, the afternoon-lull sale price, but dawdling over the candy aisle means it's $1.79 by the time you get to checkout. All of the pricing protections you outline become pretty meaningless.
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