The upside of Woolies/Coles tracking all your purchases.

altomic on 28/01/2015 - 17:23
Last edited 28/01/2015 - 17:32

everyone hates big brother. (the TV show in-particular) but also the Orwellian concept of the omnipotent entity.

having your consumerist behaviour tracked is not often considered favourable.

potentially, however, it has been fortuitous that every purchase I make is recorded.

just received an email stating broken glass has been found in this product - Homebrand Sliced Black Olives 430g

my kids love sliced black olives. I buy several jars (homebrand for $2.07) every week from woolies.

off to return 3 jars now.

I use EDR card on checkout

(I was wondering why the olives tasted like blood.)

Food & Grocery

Related Stores

Woolworths
Woolworths

Comments

  • Sage on 28/01/2015 - 17:28

    How do they know it's you? Did you order online, or was it the Everyday Rewards card?
    Interesting turn of events.

    • retiredfeline on 28/01/2015 - 17:31
      +2

      He probably scanned in his EDR card on checkout.

  • retiredfeline on 28/01/2015 - 17:30

    I see the olives aren't all they slice.

    I can see from Coolies emailed offers that they keep track but as I only buy a few items when they are on sale, I can see that they struggle to create a list of suggestions. But it has been useful at times, I have been alerted to price reductions on the things I do buy.

  • YTW on 28/01/2015 - 18:00
    +1

    They've been doing that for years.

    My mum has had two notifications from Big W purchases (Christmas lights one year and an electric blanket or heater another year).

    It is a bonus, and handy. I just wish that you could use your card as proof of purchase when returning something. They sent out the notifications then offered a couple of dollars in compensation (the clearance price) when mum returned them because she didn't have the receipt - she paid full price, but they couldn't verify that using her Everyday Rewards card despite being able to identify that she'd bought them using it.

  • Charity on 28/01/2015 - 18:01

    This is not big brother. That is woolworths taking care of customers. Lots of folks got the olive recall email.

    Big brother is:

    • telescreen = mobile devices.

    • Ministry of Love = nsa, asio, etc

    • Perpetual war = war on terror

    • Newspeak = mainstream media

    a great movie/novel by the way if folks haven't seen it.

    • silverrat23 on 28/01/2015 - 18:40
      +1

      Thanks for the plusgood info!

  • c64 on 28/01/2015 - 18:09

    mmmm, olives

  • wako on 28/01/2015 - 19:33
    +1

    I wonder what kinda emails they would send if you emptied there shelfs of lube and rubbers…

    • inherentchoice on 29/01/2015 - 16:02
      -1

      If there was a recall on defective rubbers their email might offer to pay child support?

  • [Deactivated] on 28/01/2015 - 21:21
    +1

    Big brother is alway watching:

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targe…

  • Mummy2 on 28/01/2015 - 22:16
    +2

    You can also sign up for product recall alerts at www.recalls.gov.au
    The one time we had an e-mail from Woolies about a product recall I had already received my e-mail from recalls.gov.au about 12 hours prior (don't know if its always the case that I'd hear from them first).

  • affable on 29/01/2015 - 07:43
    +2

    +1 "I just wish that you could use your card as proof of purchase when returning something"
    Having to keep and then find the faded receipt is a deliberate tactic for the shops to minimise returns.
    I'm sure you could force the EDR/FB info to be released by FOI or privacy/data retention laws (like your credit rating), just not worth doing it.

  • fredblogs on 29/01/2015 - 11:33
    +2

    Love the 4-5 syllable words!
    Orwellian
    omnipotent
    consumerist
    favourable
    potentially
    fortuitous

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