In 78 Albertsons supermarkets in the southwest, the stores will be eliminating their rewards card program. Yesterday’s Arizona Republic and today’s Salt Lake Tribune give more information. They say that this will impact all Albertsons stores in Arizona and New Mexico, and that 46 stores in Colorado and Wyoming have already done away with the program. Albertsons stores that operate under the SuperValu name will keep the cards (at least for now). Albertsons’ new strategy is to offer lower everyday prices to everyone (well, duh, there’s an idea).
The idea behind the loyalty cards is that grocery stores track your purchases and tailor offers specifically to your buying patterns. Obviously that strategy hasn’t been working out for them. Update, 9:20pm: eWeek quotes an anonymous Albertsons official as saying, “The data was being collected but it wasn’t being used.” The problem I find with Albertsons is that while their cardholder sales can be quite good, the rest of their prices are outrageous…as a result, I go in and ONLY buy the sale items. No doubt I’m not the only person doing this.
Hope the chain decides to eliminate cards in the South as well. (You reading this, Albertsons?)
