I could care less if they are tracking to see how many packages of carrots I buy in a month or if I’m a junk food binge.

Now that I think of it, I wonder if they’ve noticed a correlation between feminine supply and chocolate/salty food purchases?!?! LOL

Of course then you’re limited to paying with cash only, so the credit card company or the bank can’t track your purchases. But what if that nice cashier who waits on you is making a little list in a notebook after you leave? Or what if the bagger is keeping track of your “suspicious” purchases and flagging his friend the cart guy to get your license plate number when you go out?

There are limits to how careful one can be without stepping off the edge into paranoia.

I am well aware that Costco tracks what their members purchase. Every receipt I get from them has my membership number on it, and every item in the store has a barcode/SKU–it’s quite easy to store that information in a database and use it for all kinds of things. If I wasn’t comfortable with that, I just simply wouldn’t shop at Costco.

I think for me it comes down to the fact that I trust Costco to “do the right thing” with my personal shopping data. Time and time again, that company has shown itself to be able to make a profit without becoming unethical (i.e. markups limited to 14%, taking care of their employees, flexible return policy, etc.). I’m under no delusion that a corporation that large can be completely angelic, but IMHO Costco is better than most–the proof is in the pudding .

You mentioned the many good ways Costco uses this data–recalls are maybe the most important because they could save lives, but also facilitating returns, and increasing efficiency of inventory – which should benefit shareholders and shoppers both.

I also have no problem with them using it to protect themselves against fraud and theft (although I don’t know if they do or not). A perfect example is people scamming extra coupon books from the front desk and using multiple coupons in separate trips to buy sale items that are supposed to be limited to x per customer. I hope that Costco can get their system to track coupon use on a per account basis and enforce those coupon limits. That gives all members a chance to get in on a deal and protects Costco’s profits from resellers/ebayers.

While the libertarian in me identifies with the desire for privacy, in this case the usefulness of tracking purchases wins out in my mind. Product recall notifications are the perfect example of that. It’s just a much more efficient and effective method of informing the customer of a potentially dangerous situation. I only make it to Costco once a month so I wouldn’t necessarily see a posted recall notice in a timely fashion. Other people have probably never seen them as they are posted near the return desk (at least at my store).

If I didn’t trust Costco to use that data primarily for good then I would probably feel differently. And I do appreciate the airing of opposing viewpoints. It’s important to be aware of the good and bad aspects of data warehousing. But in this case, Costco is doing it the right way.

And I suppose if one was really paranoid, he could make the purchase with a Costco Cash Card (which I think can be used without a membership card–someone correct me if I’m wrong). The purchase of the card itself could be traced to a particular membership number but the cash card itself can be used by anyone.

Anyway, good post. I’m interested to hear what others think about this.