[BakeAholic]

Safeway has it now where you can upload your coupons onto your store savings card? Do you think this is a better idea?

[phatch]

Not if you like privacy.

And there's a fair amount of research that shows loyalty cards and stores that use them cost more.

This link is an advocacy site against such card programs so take their info with a grain of salt, but it's still quite enlightening: CASPIAN - Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering

[Just Jim]

I'm for it.
I regularly shop at Safeway, and because I do, I use their card.
My other options are Ray's, which doesn't carry some of the items I want, and Winco, a huge store with great prices, but also a haven for gangbangers, etc.
Occasional robberies and shootings that don't seem to occur at Safeway, even though it's one block away.
I occasionally go to Winco, but, and I'm serious when I say this, I never go without a gun.
Sometimes great prices just isn't worth the hassle.

[MaryB]

The online coupon print programs are spyware so I wouldn't doubt that the upload program would be the same. Online coupons could easily be offered as an image file or even a pdf file but then they couldn't spy on your shopping preferences.

[Dillbert]

it's rare that I find a coupon to use ! most of the time the store, my mailbox , my "coupons printed specially for you" from the talking check out are for stuff I never buy and certainly not tempted to buy 'it' just because I have a coupon.

>>take their info with a grain of salt
multiple pounds of salt per sentence .... most of the 'logic' presented falls into the elementary school playground 'did so, did not' scheme of truths. profitability can be measured in percent or absolute dollars.

for example the candy vs baby stuff example:
if you have a forty foot long aisle of candy, and it produces $25,000 of absolute profit in a year, that's $625 per foot.
if you have a forty foot long aisle of baby widgets, and it produces $75,000 of absolute profit in a year, that's $1875 per foot.
who needs customer data to figure that out? the manager that needs a customer card to figure out that parents with nursing children don't buy as much candy as those with teenagers needs a different vocation.

and the argument that non-card carrying members pay more is a bit on the leaky side. any body been in line when the customer has no card but the check out person sez "No problem I'll use the store card" . . .

there is of course not a single possible argument about 'the programs cost money' -
we get a free turkey, we get ten cents per gallon of gas per hundred dollars of purchases, we get $5 off your next order coupons, etc. since I don't use a lot of gas, I'm sure they're not happy when I pull up and save $0.70/gallon. I'm not the usual case.

at the end of the day, presuming one takes the freebies / utilizes the bennies, the store without a card program has equal cost/profits as the one with the card program with the exception of card program administrative costs. I seriously doubt that amount to a whole lotta money.

which totally shoots down the X is cheaper but Y is more expensive - because products are 'marked up' so they can be discounted. if I pay .20 more for a box of saltines and save .20 on dish washing soap, is there a difference in my annual grocery bill?

if a consumer shops at Market X and their bill(s) are noticeably higher than when they shop at Market Y - regardless of who has what card - the shopping habits will change.
two freebies in the bush don't beat the missing 20 buck bill from my pocket.

[MikeLM]

A couple of years ago the Wall Street Journal ran an extensive survey of loyalty-card supermarkets and one that didn't have cards in five or six cities across the country.

They compiled a representative family shopping list and priced it in every store. In every comparison, the tab at the loyalty-card store was more expensive that the non-card store, if you were gulled into doing most of your grocery shopping at that one store because of the "deals" the card offered you.

It's a sucker's game, entirely apart from the snooping they accomplish with the cards.

Mike

[Just Jim]

I saw that study.
And I agree, if you shop there for the "bargain" pricing, you've been hoodwinked.

[Dillbert]

I don't shop there for 'the bargins / bennies' - discounting 'convenience stores' there's not a supermarket within miles that does not have a card program so I don't have a choice <g>

oh, wait, we have an Aldi's about 15 miles off. went there once, don't recall they had a "card." not sure I can afford to drive 30 miles round trip to save $0.35 on a box of cereal.

I base my preference on selection, freshness, cleanliness.

[BakeAholic]

I understand what you guys are saying about uploading electronic coupons on value cards. If preferred, there are also printable coupons on our site that you can take with you to redeem at the store. Just check out Safeway - coupons for all the coupons.

[MaryB]

As I mentioned before, the printable coupons require you to download and install a "coupon printer". They are spyware and get flagged as such by every piece of antivirus or anti-spyware software out there.

[macro01]

Why not? Uploading coupons is a great deal.
I use coupons when shopping online. It saves
my money and my time. Now a days we need
to save more for future expenses.

[CookieCookie]

Seems like it would take too much time.