Grocery Store Cards

Albertsons is my current grocery store of choice. There is one within a mile of my apartment and one very close by work, so convenience is certainly a big factor. One of my big reasons outside of convenience has been that they always have had generally low prices with no gimmicks.

However, after coming out of the California workers strike, Albertsons switched to using a Store Card.

The benefit of the grocery store card is that the grocery store in question (and all of its affiliates and third party members) can track where you shop and what you buy. The incentive to you, the shopper, for them having this insight into your life and habits are the sweepstakes, rewards, and "lower" costs on some in-store items when you use the card. In essence, they are paying you to be market research for them.

I went through this with Vons awhile back. I noticed that the prices were generally rising over the course of a month or so, then the cards were introduced. The "savings" you could get from the card brought the prices back down to the value those goods had before the introduction of the grocery shopping card. I also had to put up with phone calls and mail from the company all relating to the card.

My local Albertsons also slowly, over the course of a few weeks, raised all of its' prices. Now they've introduced a grocery shopping card of their own. When I do the math on soda, meat, breads, and other items and subtract the "savings" amount from the current non-card cost of items the price drops to the month-ago price for the same item. Coincidence?

I do not want my grocery store tracking where I go and what I buy. With all their computer automation tracking their own goods, services, and inventory, they know closely enough what I buy. I would rather they not spend the millions of dollars on promotions, advertising, and rebates and instead just give me the lower prices I've come to expect from my grocery store.

Just when they are coming out of the strike and trying to lure people back into the stores, they raise prices and irritate at least 10% of their shopping public by introducing these store cards. I would expect they would lower prices and offer other incentives to get us back. But what do I know; I'm just another one of their loyal shoppers who they have angered with the strike and who is now further ired by the store card. Of course, if there are enough people like me, the chain has to close down the store. I'd rather cut profit margins short-term to get people back in the habit of shopping at my stores after months of striking workers, then raise prices a little at a time back to normal values once the habit has been re-formed. But again, what do I know?

There is a Stater Brothers grocery store not too far away from where I live. It doesn't have any gimmicks or grocery store cards. Their prices are generally low in all areas. Guess where I'll be shopping from now on?