After announcing a $1.6 billion record profit, Woolworths has decided to further milk the dying consumer cow by quietly launching members-only prices for Everyday Rewards shoppers.
The program, which started Wednesday 23 August, allows shoppers who sign up to the free membership program to access discount prices on goods which have a little orange “r” tag, indicating the price for Rewards members only. Whilst Woolworths representatives claim that the Everyday Rewards “Member Prices” allow Woolworths to deliver value to their customers, there is good reason to be cynical.
This is because the new Member Prices don’t seem to actually bring any new benefits to consumers. Rather, many individuals have claimed that these Member Prices are simply replacing specials that already existed. For example, Tiktokker Jarodsworld identified that the Woolworths “chicken garlic kyiv bites” used to be two for $15. However, at his local Woolworths, this deal is now reserved for Rewards members only.
Given the current economic climate, this is a dangerous use of Woolworth’s power. As one of the major grocery providers in Australia, the company is capitalising off the cost of living crisis in order to coerce shoppers into providing their data. Everyday Rewards collects your basic personal information, alongside views and clicks on websites, purchases, details of family members linked in the Rewards app, drivers licence details if used for verification, mobile device details (including model and operating system), and even location data.
Woolworths uses a subsidiary company, WooliesX, to process this data. The company can use this data to create highly specific customer profiles, and then target shoppers with specific customer orders. Woolworths also shares this data with its other associated companies: if you shop at Woolworths with your Everyday Rewards card, Jimmy Brings will also have access to your personal information.
However, and perhaps more insidiously, this data can also be sold to third party groups such as data brokers. As the name suggests, data brokers are companies that store and sell consumer data, often without adequate protection from privacy laws. More alarmingly, it seems that Woolworths has a 75% stake in one of the largest data brokers – Quantium. Therefore, in another twist of capitalism, in order to afford groceries it seems that consumers must turn themselves and their data into a product ready to be sold.
Nonetheless, it is important to note that Woolworths is not alone in this activity. Coles similarly uses the Flybuys program, which collects much the same information and is shared to other retailers such as Target, Bunnings and Kmart. Moreover, Member Pricing can be found widely in both England and Ireland. However, this is hardly a reason to justify its continued expansion and normalisation of such invasive practices in Australia.
Fortunately, the federal government is currently reviewing the Privacy Act, following the release of the Privacy Act Review Report 2023. The report provides greater guidelines for entities to handle personal information fairly and responsibly. Current privacy laws lack adequate consumer protection, and leave it up to the goodwill of companies to ensure personal data is handled responsibly.
However, amidst Woolworth’s new AI surveillance cameras at checkout, and this recent expansion of Rewards member pricing, there’s a data breach just waiting to happen. In this new age of Australian retail, the Privacy Act review currently being considered by the federal government can’t come fast enough.
