WHY SHOULD YOU BE WORRIED ABOUT IT?
Even in locations with multiple supermarkets, that top 20 percent is going to be the same group of people at every store. If you’re not in that 20 percent—and the magic of math says you probably aren’t—you’re going to pay more for an increasingly poorer selection no matter what you do.
Eventually, supermarkets will exhaust the possibilities of segmenting their market and will turn to new methods of using the information collected by their discount program. Look for a posted notification that the store’s privacy policy has changed. Then keep an eye out for the direct mail and phone campaigns. Depending on what information you gave them when you signed up, they might know how many kids you have, your age, your marital status, and where you work. Even if you didn’t volunteer that information, they can guess at a lot of it based on your purchase history. Imagine, if you will, a near future in which the phone rings just as you sit down to a nice steak dinner. It’s the supermarket, wondering how you’re enjoying that steak and suggesting that next time you might want to purchase some steak sauce to go along with it.