They have introduced a new clubcard pricing system which means you are penalised heavily for not having one. To have one you have to opt into data collection.
We're not talking small price disparity here. Between 30%-50% more expensive on some product lines for not having a clubcard.
Edit: to be clear that is 30-50% more expensive than the baseline prices for the same items in other stores.
Like another poster said, if you're worried about privacy/data collection/spam, just sign up with false details. Now days, everything is done through the app so you can get all the benefits without using a real identity.
Also, if you use Apple Pay / Android Pay, a device account number (DAN) is generated that is different from your physical card number. I'm not sure whether retailers get a name from such a transaction, but I suspect they just get the card number?
As for the app, I don't want my phone polluted with even more crap. If I had a corporate loyalty app for every shop I wanted to go in, I'd have a hundred apps, a hundred data collection problems and a flat battery. Instead I have one called Apple Pay which works everywhere..
Personally I find the Sainsbury's scheme (Nectar) better overall, however. All the "vouchers" that multiply your points are applied automatically through the app, rather than having to goof around with scanning barcodes as in the Tesco app.
I haven't worked out my exact spend at Sainsbury's this year, but it was probably less than £1000. From that I had enough nectar points to buy £100 worth of wines in a recent promotion, and I still have plenty left over... (points, that is. Most of the wine is gone, haha)
Why does the data need to be personally identifiable for this? Is there a reason a store can't look at total sales volume for a particular product & figure out how many more units to order?
Total sales volume doesn't get the same accuracy of individual shopper habits. I'm not in this sector so somebody else can correct me. Knowing what products each customer tends to buy during cold/flu season or a holiday or some opaque reason allows them to predict demand rather than react to overall trends and current stock amounts. If their data model knows that a small group of heavy purchasers of an item haven't purchased the item recently and are expected to visit the store soon, that demand can be anticipated. If a customer moves, then purchasing habits can be automatically planned for at the new store they begin shopping at rather than waiting for their sometimes infrequent purchasing habits to affect sales at the new and old locations.
We can't know how data will be manipulated as future technology is developed.
A non-Tesco supermarket is going to be a priority next time I move.
Or you could just shop somewhere else, but that is a worse option in my case.
/s.....hopefully
No company deserves loyalty through a scheme like this. Only through decent customer service and reasonable pricing.
As for shopping elsewhere, yes. I use Asda now which does not require a loyalty card to get the discount prices and is generally cheaper and better stocked despite being smaller here.