I admit to being a lazy grocery shopper who tends to go to the nearest supermarket instead of hunting around for stores with better prices. At the most, I compare prices of similar products in the supermarket and buy bigger quantities, which can be a bit cheaper.
To mitigatethe increasingly painful wallet-ache of buying necessities, I’ve been swiping my battered Countdown piece of plastic to get modest discounts on groceries for years. This despite misgivings that each time you do that, the supermarket data analytics systems learn more about you.
Countdown has now rebranded as Woolworths, and last month I was opted into the Aussie-imported Everyday Rewards loyalty scheme that replaces Onecard.
As in, I didn’t have to do anything apart from taking the Everyday Rewards card the cashier gave me, like the reluctant points-earning supermarket zombie that I am.
I can’t be the only one who feels held hostage by loyalty schemes. The cost of living really hurts, and I maintain that it’s gone up way more than official statistics suggest. It’s difficult to decline the discounts on necessities, but paying for them with your privacy and by providing free market research for supermarket giants feels like Everyday Regrets, not Rewards.
Talking about this to a friend, I looked at the Everyday Rewards website to see what I had joined. There’s a lot to take in on the site, such as no fewer than six terms-and-conditions documents. Some for Everyday Rewards itself, and if you link the card to retailers, those of BPme and BP, ASB and Vineonline.
The orange Everyday Rewards card replaces the Countdown Onecard that launched 20 years ago.
What’s the bet that most people won’t read terms and conditions before signing up? In the unlikely event people do, how well do they understand them?
You have to be at least 18 to join Everyday Rewards, or get a parent or guardian’s consent to become a member, which is potentially problematic because it could lock out younger shoppers from the scheme, meaning they pay higher prices.
That said, there was no date-of-birth verification with a test sign-up on the Everyday Rewards website so kids: be discreet when you scan your cards at Woollies and you’re not allowed to share the barcode, mkay?
There’s some dubious stuff in the T&Cs like “your personal information may be disclosed to overseas locations such as Australia, the USA, the UK, Malaysia, the Philippines and India where your personal information may not be protected in a way that, overall, provides comparable safeguards to New Zealand privacy laws”.
Don’t forget that by using technologies like facial recognition through closed-circuit cameras, automatic number plate recognition and of course payments and loyalty card information, supermarkets know a huge amount about you.
It’s personal data that should remain between you and the retailer and definitely not go overseas, but that privacy cat’s probably well and truly out of the bag by now.
You can try to bypass some of the above “shoptech” by paying cash. Without loyalty scheme membership, however, it’ll cost you more.
Anonymising shopping data so that people’s identities are hidden should be the mandated default if we have to have loyalty schemes. With all the publicity around customer tracking and surveillance, data breaches and intrusive use of information, it’s surprising that Woolworths’ marketing people didn’t make strong privacy a headline feature of Everyday Rewards.
Another dimension to the issue is that loyalty schemes are anti-competitive by nature. They discourage you from shopping around for better deals, and make it harder to compare pricing. Obviously, some grocery items go on promotion and specials to move them quickly, but with regular discounts on others, what are their regular prices and when?
Government watchdogs are aware of the above. On January 30, Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority launched a review into loyalty pricing at supermarkets. The Commerce Commission has kept a watchful eye on loyalty schemes in the past and will no doubt study the CMA review carefully.
To rub it in that playing the loyalty scheme game is usually not worth it, handing over my personal data didn’t even get me the best fuel deal despite the 20¢-a-litre “first fill” discount if you link the Everyday Rewards card with BP.
I “saved” a whopping $8.20 by filling up at a nearby BP service station. Had I instead filled up at the New World supermarket down the road where fuel costs less, and which has a 6¢/litre loyalty discount, the total cost would’ve been $1.14 less. As the expression goes, the house always wins.
