Target's Targeting You.
By
Staten Island, NY Posted: 12/4/2016 1:00:00 AM
Target knows more about you, than you know about yourself.
In retail, information is king, and nobody does it better than Target. Every time you shop at Target using their Red Card, or even your own credit card, they track every item you buy so that they can anticipate your future purchases.
The Target Red Card lets them take things even further because it links back to your full name, email, and home mailing addresses, so they can send you coupons and flyers tailored to your specific interests.
The idea of tracking your purchases isn't new. Companies have been tracking your purchases for years, but until recently they lacked the sophistication needed to do much more than offer coupons for similar or competing products at checkout. As retail databases grow, companies like Target can now anticipate life events just from insignificant looking patterns in your purchases.
For example, there was a case recently where the father of a high school student confronted the manager of his local Target because his daughter started getting a lot of baby product ads from Target. The manager apologized to the father and assured him it was just a computer glitch and that he would contact the corporate office to remove her from the maternity list. He called back the next day to follow up, and as it turns out, Target was right. His daughter was indeed, pregnant.
As it turns out, Target can not only tell if a customer is pregnant based upon simple purchases like unscented soap, hand sanitizer, and certain vitamins, but they can even predict the month. That's pretty amazing.
The funny thing is that they spend millions of dollars on sophisticated computers and software to try to anticipate what you're interested in, but they could gather a lot of the same information by simply sending out a survey from time to time.
I think the reason they don't do that is because unlike a survey, their database may know more about you, than you do. For example, if they see a pattern that a million customers who buy Cheerios, Hormel Chili, and Cracker Jack also buy wool socks, they may send you ads for wool socks, even if you've never bought them, just because you bought the other items.
Joe Crescenzi, Founder
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