Things like that were just starting to come into the fore as I was leaving. Data like that would be worth a fortune. There was some RFID testing coming into play, and we did some testing with that. We not only had access to proprietary data, such as extensive video feeds, we had our own warehouse that doubled as a lab where we could test pattern changes and quantify the results.

And I do mean worth a fortune. It's a lucrative industry. Between that and things like store-cards, individualized promotions, etc... And people are just giving them this data, or maybe exchanging it for £0.10 off an item they'd have never paid for and was probably marked up the previous weeks just to make sure it qualified as a lawful sale. (For the Americans reading, many other nations have actual laws protecting consumers - and they dictate what can be called a sale and stuff like that.)

Seriously, data like that would be worth a ton of money.

^ That's child's play compared to what Google, Facebook & Co. have been doing for years, on so many fronts.
It doesn't stop when you leave the shop, either. GPS, accelerometer, mobile gaming, social media and browsing history all combined into one giant real-time advertising psychokiller.

Absolutely. I suspect that large retail chains are pulling in all that data as well - from searches to cell phone data. If they can stuff you into a category and ooze a slightly higher profit margin from you, they're going to do it.

There's a reason I read a lot of privacy policies and abstain from all sorts of services.

The reason isn't that I think it helps me as an individual, it's just a form of mild protest. They've certainly got a dossier with my name on it and use it all the time, but my mild protest makes me feel a little better. I refuse to spend any money in a Walmart, for example of real-world avoidance. Online, I have no Facebook, Twitter, etc...

It doesn't help, but I *feel* a little better about my choices.

As for searching, Bing has all my data (lately). I let 'em have my data in exchange for 'personalized' searches. The results are worth the exchange of data - for me.

So, I pick my battles and make choices (as much as I can) based on my needs and wants. YouTube also has a tons of data about me. I stay logged in, making use of various account-holder features. Again, it's an exchange of data that I'm okay with.

Offline, in the real world, I'm a bit more cautious - but the line betwixt the two narrows.

Seeing as we've meandered this far off topic, I'm interested to see what next-gen highway infrastructure is going to look like with self-driving cars. With enough computational power and a large view of real-time data, they'd be able to more or less get rid of congestion - but at what cost? A decade and a half ago, this was purely hypothetical. Today, not so much. These issues are intrinsically related.

Add in the wonderful Internet Of Things and, well... I don't imagine I need to preach to the choir.

And then we tend to buy big (Do we REALLY need four tubs of margarine? Yes, at that price).

And the ingrained thought that bigger pack sizes are cheaper per kilo or litre. I don't see a lot of calculating cost per kilo at the supermarket.

You may not see much of it, but some of us do it. I don't calculate to the penny, but I do some calculation. Sometimes convenience outweighs price if the difference is very small. I may buy a smaller package for a little more, if it's something that we don't use a lot of, and the bigger package may spoil before we can use it. That's part of the calculation, too.

In the US the barcodes that are scanned for price don't get covered over or modified. They are standard UPC codes that go directly go to a computer. Now in the stores that I go into almost always will read the wrong price if there is some special sale. If you are at self checkout then you will need to get cashier. Usually the normal line cashiers will catch the price reduction if they have authorization. Otherwise it will be a call on the overhead for manager to isle 5.

2 pounds for 10 of the most expensive eggs seems reasonable. I pay about $5-$6 for a dozen.

Lucky for me most of the prices at the store have some reference to dollar per weight or count.

It's not at all uncommon for an item to ring up for more than the advertised price. My wife watches the ringups like a hawk. The usual thing if one is wrong is to send a sacker back to find the price and report back, holding up the checkout line. I tend to want to just let it go if the difference is a few cents, but she won't hear of it. Sometimes she has read the price wrong, or the wrong price, but usually the computer has the wrong price. That's a lot to pay for eggs. We pay around $3.50 for a dozen organic free-range eggs, less than $2 for a dozen run-of-the-mill eggs. I have never in my life seen eggs sold in packs of 10. It's always 6, 12, or 18, or an entire flat. I guess they've totally embraced the decimal system over there.

Not where I shop: eggs can be 4, 6, or 12 per pack. I was also puzzled by the "essentials at the rear" idea. We have 4 supermarkets in our high street, and all put fruit and vegetables at the front.

Decimal eggs are definitely new. They seem to have replaced dozens. It used to be either 6 or 12 when I was younger. I've never seen 4 though. Who would want to buy 4 eggs?

In the past I worked in a store not far from my home. This was a regular thing. They change prices so often that it's nearly impossible to keep up with the labeling. Usually it worked out to costing less than the sticker so people were happy. Occasionally though we would have to price match the sticker as it was ringing higher, but that was only if the customer caught it. I'm guessing this is par for the course in any grocery type store, especially ones with limited staff.

*EDIT* I suppose the only way to solve this issue is to have led or strips along each shelf with each locations price all automatically adjusted. But the cost would be prohibitive.

Around here, it's always part of the price label on the shelf.
Small but always present, kilos or litres.
Of course, that doesn't necessarily make people use it.

You mean while you're physically in the shop?
Not directly. Not unless you use their "app".
Possibly some sort of data accumulation would be possible if you have Wifi enabled, but definitely illegal where I live.
Of course Google sells the data that they accumulate, probably in near-real time, and your shop owner might buy it while you're still in the shop.

I do not see it as mere protest - I want to minimise the data that is being accumulated about me. And I do. It's not an "All Or Nothing" thing. There's matters of degrees - less is better - even less is even better. It's definitley real.

It does help. It's real.

If everybody strives to allow less data accumulation, it will evtl. bring down Google etc. (or at least make them reconsider their business model).
The EU laws regarding this sort of stuff are very real and have already shown some concrete result, too.

I always use it if there are alternatives on offer. I check the unit price and go for the cheapest, especially when buying meat. My mother taught me how to shop. She used to say it was her sport, like a football match, only with several players on one side and only her on the other. She was better at it than I am because she could memorise prices and knew if something was cheaper in a particular shop. She would go in, buy the loss leader and march out again to do the rest of her shopping somewhere else. They must have really hated her.
I do now click on the privacy pop-up they have to show you under GDPR and switch off everything I can. But often I find that it's already switched off because I've used that site before.

It is over here as well, but it's so small I find it easier to do a quick calculation.

I try to minimise my data theft by having data, wireless and bluetooth switched off my phone. Except for our COVID app phone; the app needs bluetooth and either phone data or wireless. We had to get a new phone (our android versions were too old) which has the app and nothing else and no SIM card - it'll be an upgrade for one of us when this mess is over.

I suspect that supermarkets over here get most of their data not from surreptitiously positioned WAPs, but from the fact that most consumers will pay by debit card. I had tried to make more of an effort to pay by cash toward the end of last year, but recent events have mostly put a stop to that.

Loyalty cards are another data collection boon for supermarkets.