by Doreen Martel

Created on: December 22, 2009

If you have been in a grocery store more than one time in the last ten years, chances are that you are now the proud owner of a grocery store discount card.  Whereas we once had stores that posted special "cents off" coupons for specific items, we now have this handy card that hangs from our key chain that will provide us the same benefit as sitting and clipping coupons from our Sunday paper.  We understand that the main function of the card is supposed to be to provide us a discount, but grocery stores use discount cards for more than just discounts. Let us take a look at some of the data that can be reviewed by a store when you use a discount card.

1.  Geographic Data - Regardless of where you live, your discount card can be used at any "branch" of the store for which it was issued.  Some people prefer to shop in their home town, while others travel to get to their favorite grocery store.  The demographic data that you provided on your store discount card application can help a store determine how far people are traveling to get there. This can provide them with important data if they are considering expanding into another town.

2.  Time Stamps - While you may not think about it, each time you use your grocery store discount card a time is associated with your transaction.  This data can be used by a store not for the purposes of discounts, but to determine when their high and low traffic periods occur. Abnormal time stamps do occur during holidays and when bad weather is threatened which can be filtered to provide valuable data.  This can assist a grocery store in adjusting their staffing model to ensure that they have sufficient staff during peak shopping hours.

3.  Patterns - Some people tend to stock their pantry prior to winter and will make excessive purchases early in the winter. Other shoppers prefer the weekly routine of purchasing what they need on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.  There are also those shoppers who visit one store specifically to purchase sale items.  This type of data can be easily culled out of the data reports that grocery stores can generate from shoppers use of their discount cards.

4.  Coupon Use - Thousands of people use cents-off coupons when they shop.  Grocery stores can now track which coupons are the most commonly used across their customer base. This allows a store to see if there are particular products where cents-off coupons are used more frequently.  For instance, if 2/3 of grocery shoppers who have a discount card also use coupons for breakfast cereal, chances are that they could promote the purchase of a particular brand of cereal.

5.  Inventory - Grocery stores can use discount card data for inventory purposes. As an example of this, if more shoppers buy Coke than Pepsi products, then the stores sales will increase if they stock more Coke products and fewer Pepsi products. This also can curb the cost of inventory.

Summary

While your grocery store discount may be great for you to take advantage of discounts that the store is offering, you can see that the benefit is mutual.  Grocery stores use the data from discount card usage for more than providing you with discounts.

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