Posted 3 days ago

What are Sainsbury's/nectar up to?

I've noticed how Sainsbury's have introduced nectar pricing. This means if you have a nectar account certain items are cheaper. Nothing strange about that but what is strange is the amount of discount available with nectar in certain items. It's not unusual to get a discount of 30+%. Eg a £29 bottle of whiskey is £19 with nectar. In the past i thought loyalty schemes offered tiny percentage savings.


The huge discounts suggest to me they are trying to get everyone onto nectar.
Which makes me wonder why. What are they up to?

I fear it's personalised pricing. Indeed the nectar marketing I saw said something like "A price just for you".

I thought personalised pricing wasn't legal in this country?

Interested in anyone knows any more of has opinions.
Community Updates
New Comment

Categories

Supermarket Deals
Supermarket

22 Comments

sorted by
's avatar
  1. honeststeveo's avatar
    Author
    Interesting article. This is probably the closest thing to my "illegal":
    Last month, the competition watchdog said it would investigate the effect on consumers of the rise of loyalty card price cuts amid concerns that they could limit competition and disadvantage consumers who had not signed up to the schemes.
  2. bozo007's avatar
    You have discovered this now??

    Nothing illegal about it because personalised pricing doesn't use any protected attribute to determine the offers. Secondly, you also agreed to many other things when signing up to a contract that wasn't read.
  3. Jeremy424's avatar
    The purchasing history collected via Nectar is very valuable and companies are willing to pay for this. Regarding the 'personalised pricing', shops such as Waitrose offer personalised coupons via their Mywaitrose card. You are being offered a different price depending on what you buy and how often. I don't really have a problem with any of this as long as it's upfront and all explained.

    Also, think about the fact that even a rush of people buying certain items will change the price/availability. Everyone starts buying loads of toilet paper/basic ownbrand pasta etc. and eventually the price will rise. You could argue that it isn't fair that the price of basic ownbrand items has been inflated so that it isn't as available to poorer members of society who can't afford De cecco etc. My point is that almost everything we do in society impacts each other.
    honeststeveo's avatar
    Author
    Pricing based on your purchase history is one thing. But without know the algorithm they use how do you know that's the only thing that pricing is based upon?

    Would you also be happy paying more than your neighbour because the retailer has obtained data from you bank and determined that you have more savings?
  4. mutley1's avatar
    i have benefited from nectar and so it makes shopping at sainsburys quite cheap when it looks expensive on the face of it.

    i don't think there is any conspricay going on except, targeted advertising, which is not illegal.
    plebbygiraffe's avatar
    Indeed. Companies don't want to know who you are, they want to know what you are.

    Loyalty schemes do not sell that fact that your name is Joe Bloggs and you live at 10 The Lane and your phone number is 999, they sell the fact that people who buy loads of Haribo also buy sensitive teeth toothpaste.
  5. TristanDeCoonha's avatar
    This is why, when you sign up to these schemes you use fake details and a unique email address. Your data is for sale.
    The main problem is that most schemes demand your phone number, so your profile is easily matched across all the metrics and data trafficking companies
    Bjnwee's avatar
    I get your point but what about when these schemes are linked to your other accounts that have your real details.

    Eg
    Real detail memberships: Ebay + Argos + Sainsburys

    The above all jointly linked by bogus Dr. John Doe Nectar card?
  6. Pandamansays's avatar
    I don't have a nectar card and therefore no longer shop at Sainsburys - Simples.
    To be fair, my localish Sainsburys is full of empty shelves and disinterested staff so I'm not missing much.
  7. Prunus's avatar
    I just have someone else's Nectar card number entered in my online account. They get the points, I get the Nectar pricing, Sainsbury's get their data garbled. Win win win.
  8. splatsplatsplat's avatar
    My daughters doing her A-Levels in a few months. Nectar launched 4 years before she was born.
  9. jasmith85's avatar
    It's called a scam, a few supermarkets do it. Let us use your data/shopping habits etc... in return will sell you the items at RRP whilst charging everyone else and more just for the hell of it.

    Corporate greed and all that. (edited)
  10. TristanDeCoonha's avatar
    Nectar pricing is no different to student discount, special codes, gender based reduction, 3rd party membership schemes or similar.
    It is a marketing tool to entice and capture a greater share of a limited consumer base. There is a sports goods shop that charges you for a card to get your discount, and will still sell your (limited) data, so at least this discount is "free"
  11. spannerzone's avatar
    Older readers will probably have heard of GreenShield Stamps - launched in 1958, the first large scale loyalty shopping program, when you went shopping at Tesco's and a few other stores you got little stamps to put in a book and when you filled up a few dozen pages, you could redeem for a range of things.

    While not exactly the same as Clubcard or Nectar, these loyalty things are nothing new and arguably less interesting than collecting pages of little green stamps to redeem for an iron
    mutley1's avatar
    When I was a kid, I remember we collected stamps at Esso, which you could exchange for useless stuff like wine glasses
's avatar