BudNet Tracks Your Suds 712
An anonymous reader writes "CNN is carrying a story about Budweiser's national internal sales tracking network called BudNET. It allows Anheuser-Busch to instantly track sales across the country, and 'If Anheuser-Busch loses shelf space in a store in Clarksville, Tennessee, they know it right away.' It brings up some interesting privacy issues, because according to the article 'The last time you bought a six-pack of Bud Light at the Piggly Wiggly, Anheuser servers most likely recorded what you paid, when that beer was brewed, whether you purchased it warm or chilled, and whether you could have gotten a better deal down the street.' Frankly, I don't want Budweiser knowing when I choose to buy their beer versus another brands."
They're not tracking individual customer purchases (Score:5, Informative)
They do that in two ways (again, according to the article): a "nightly sweep of their distributors' databases" and 2) on-site visits by sales reps who notice how the store is set up, whether it's selling room-temp or chilld beer (or both), and probably noting the class of customers.
Despite Michael's concerns, there's nothing in there about tying to individual customer purchases or even getting explicit sales data on competitors' products.
Oh no! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They're not tracking individual customer purcha (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Quite frankly... (Score:4, Informative)
I can understand their interest in better tracking of inventory, but it done be amazing the lengths they go for profit other than to improve their brands. I'm sure they, like Miller and others, picked up a few microbreweries during the boom in the 90's, but if they watered them down like their own flagship brand then it's a self-defeating measure. (Budweiser shorts on expensive malted barley, using 40% rice)
I've known enough people who work in stores (or have worked for distributors) and the pressure for sales space (particularly at the expense of competitors) usually is waged with inducements, like clocks, TV's, trips to the Super Bowl, etc.
After all the advertising, all the tactics, all the analysis, it's still like Eric Idle said. It's worth pointing out to Bud fans, who stand by their 'beer' like it's Mom, Apple Pie and the Flag, that this company didn't become hugely profitable by following the Reinheitsgebot.
So much foil your neck is going to snap (Score:5, Informative)
This information allows them to know there market, plan shipments and various other usefull things.
But instead you would prefer to assume they are tracking how many brain killing gulps of beer your drinking so they know when your drunk enough to use there super secret beer tracking brain scanner to download your life and the history of your poor sex life.
Re:Just pay with cash (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, at a growing number of stores, including every single grocery store in my area, thay want you to carry and use a card that identifies you to the system even if you do pay cash. Of course, you can not cary a card, but then you don't get any of the sale prices, and more and more items seem to be "on sale". Of course, the sale prices are still higher than the items were before the cards, and higher than the items are in areas where they don't have the cards. So yes, you can pay cash, but be prepaired to pay a few bucks extra if you want to retain your privacy.
This is just good marketing research. (Score:5, Informative)
Their not tieing this to a record of an individual person. They are not providing the data to the "Office of Homeland Security" to determine who the terrorist / non-bud-drinkers are..
They're just trying to see who is buying their beer.
Then, they'll use that data to more effectively target the low-income urban minorities, to keep them under the yoke of "The Man".
Yes, Bud CAN Trace Beer Purchases to Individuals (Score:3, Informative)
Bud is using Information Resources, Inc., which compiles register scan info. This includes those little barcoded keychain dongles that let you get special discounts -- you know, the ones you filled out a form with your personal information to get?
So, no, Bud can't trace EVERY beer purchase to the individual. And they most likely don't really care which particular individuals buy stuff, they're looking at demographic trends. But data on retail sales to individuals, and personal information abou those individuals IS in the system. That's how they get some of their demographics.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
Give the "you" a rest (Score:5, Informative)
Give it a Rest (Score:1, Informative)
THey don't know ANYTHING about 'you.' They are just tracking the sales of their product. This has NOTHING to do with individual customers, this is just 'what do 'people' like.'
Getting worried that this is a privacy concern is insane. Would you rather the manufacturers and retailers tried to 'spam' you with products that they have no idea if you like or not?
This much information is great, since it's 'individual agnostic.' It's about the beer (temperature, placement, etc), not the buyer.
Begs the Question... (Score:5, Informative)
Something tells me that if people were to actually expand their horizons on the beer front, they would discover the Sierra Nevadas, Shiners and such that have nationwide markets and comprable pricing to Bud ($9 a 12-er compared to $11 a 12-er for Shiner). Guess what? These are small companies (relative to A-B) who are not going to fool with BudNETing your habit.
BEER: The cause of, and the solution to, all of life's problems -- HJS.
Re:Just pay with cash (Score:5, Informative)
Or just download, print and apply the the Ultimate Shopper's [cockeyed.com] number and get your sale prices whilst still donning your tin foil apparel.
Re:Just pay with cash (Score:1, Informative)
Bullshit. I've worked in retail for many years, and instituted customer loyalty cards myself (which is what these cards are referred to in the biz), and what you are claiming is complete crap.
and higher than the items are in areas where they don't have the cards.
See above.
Re:Just pay with cash (Score:3, Informative)
That's the guy you were probalby talking about. "Together we might amass a profile of the single greatest shopper in the history of mankind."
You haven't hung out with Marines (Score:5, Informative)
So, typically, you get a case or two of the stuff you like to drink, and a case or two of something cheap. [exact numbers vary by the number of people involved, their prefered drinking habits, and at what point in the night they become incoherent]
As people get more loaded, you give 'em the crappy stuff. They don't really care. This enables you to get some good stuff, and some crap, rather than settling on the mediocre middle ground for everything.
Re:Since when... (Score:3, Informative)
According to AB's website [budweiser.ca], Anheuser got into the business in 1852, and Budweiser beer was introduced in 1876.
I took a tour of one of their large breweries many years ago. Their history is actually pretty interesting; it was one of the first nationally mass-marketed products of any kind. The story was more about how they pioneered the use of refrigerated railroad cars and distribution channels than about the beer itself. (IIRC, their style of beer, which has influenced most mass market American beers, was developed to better survive the rigors of long shipments in the 18th century.)
Once they had the distribution system established, they were able to use economies of scale to squeeze out most of the local brewers in each market. Only in the 1980s did local brewing recover after it was found that many people would indeed pay a premium for a variety of choice.
Everyone's being derisive of Bud, but ... (Score:3, Informative)
Pyramid Hefeweisen(sp?) - a light beer, but with a lot more character and a better taste.
Spaten/Spaten Optimator - german consumer beer with at least some character.
Ommegang - a somewhat darker and richer beer with a great, interesting taste. Try it.
Arrogant Bastard - A real beer drinker's beer.
All of these should be found at a Beverages and More! or your local equivalent.
I used to be a Guinness drinker, but the dark/heavy drinks became a little too much for me - especially when you're trying to have a meal with your drink. Shit, I don't have room for dessert because I had that Guinness!.
Others, please feel free to add your beer recommendations for Bud replacements!
B*tch, b*tch (Score:1, Informative)
2. If you are worried about someone watching your spending habits, use cash.
What Privacy Problem? (Score:3, Informative)
How about sharing this data with us? (Score:5, Informative)
This is more-or-less what has happened. If you use a card (the cashier scans the barcode on the plastic card) then you get the sale items at about 20% less than the standard price. But at normal price, almost every item in the store is 20% higher than the other stores in the area.
In my neighborhood there are seven major grocery stores within a mile radius of my apartment, so I can take advantage of weekly sales.
That is, if I can find out about these weekly sales. I want to be able to go to a website and find out what each store is having on sale this week, and, what the normal non-sale cost is for each item for each store.
The stores treat this information like it was top-secret military data. They threaten anyone who records prices for comparison with arrest. There are signs all over the stores: "No cameras", "no notebooks".
Such contempt for the general public makes me very uncomfortable whenever I go into grocery stores nowdays. I've reduced my shopping at Safeway by about 95% and at Albertson's by at least 60% in the past year. The checkers are amiable but extremely slow. The management is scientifically selected to be crypto-fascist pinhead morons and the whole experience of 'doing' these stores is unpleasent. And I'm just a normal shopper: not a shoplifter or scammer.
The worst grocery store in the country has got to be Safeway. They constantly do bait-and-switch with items that are advertised at reduced price only to have you pay extra at checkout because the fine print shows that the item was not the sale item. Like for example, big signs saying that "Flavor Fresh" brand frozen peas are 79 cents for a pound. So you grab a pack only to be charged $1.29 at the register. Turns out that the peas you grabbed were "FlavorPac" brand which looks like exactly the same package AND was placed directly under the sign saying "Flavor Fresh" peas were on sale.
This happened to me so many times at Safeway that I call it the 'Safeway Shuffle' at the checkout; where they send someone back to check the price when you complain that you were overcharged. I was at the point where I was bringing a caliper to measure the width of the barcode line and comparing it to the barcode on the sale announcement, when I realized that there was a simpler and more elegant solution. Just get the fuck out of Safeway and don't go back!
I'm still amazed that they're still in business. But many places in California, they're the only store for miles around.
So, yes, I'm pissed that companies are collecting all this information about customers without allowing the customers to use it for their benefit. The internet really has changed everything: people really do expect a mutually benefitial relationship from all this information gathering.
This is the point that the business and management people just don't seem to understand. In the coming years, companies that share information with their customers will prosper and those that hoard and hide information will not.
Won't do personal data (Score:4, Informative)
2.) This would also make it easy to see who sold the beer that the drunk driver was drinking when he smashed his car into a school bus, further opening up the distributors to possible litigation in our sue-happy society.
perfect information (Score:1, Informative)
My theory how they make Budweiser in US (Score:1, Informative)
My theory is that whenever there is a batch brewed in the Budvar or Budweiser Burgerbrau, the fermentation tanks are cleansed by CIP procedure. The rinsing solution is then collected, tanked and shipped to St. Louis, US. Anheuser-Busch then adds in some ethanol to raise its alcohol contents to close 5% by volume.
That also explains why the Yank Bud tastes like dish-washing water.
Frankly, Americans should make cars and Czech should make beer. Skoda isn't a car and Anheuser-Busch Budweiser isn't a beer.
Re:Wow you're right! (Score:3, Informative)
script (Score:3, Informative)
t h E Q U Ickb r o wn F o x j u M P e d O Ver T Hel a Z Y D og
the Qu i ck B RO w n f o X Ju mpE d o v e R t he l az y dog
Now the problem is, I can't get the 13 line script through the lameness filters. Well, hell, get it from here [66.93.230.14] then run it with:
clisp -q -i ransom-note.lisp -x "(ransom-note \"my dog has fleas\")"
(the file I said to download is just a text file, not really an executable like the webserver says.)
Re:Quite frankly... (Score:3, Informative)
Treading water in Calif. for the time being. Any FDIC insured, thus regulated instituition is required by law to provide a PRIVACY POLICY and INFORMATION SHARING document for user view.
FYI, They will give you a card w/ NO Info (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not Safe at Wal*Mart (Score:4, Informative)
Also, the wheel would be a bad place to put a RFID transmitter. The movement and vibration around there, as well as the fact that transmission distance would be limited by being near the ground, mean that there would be better places for it.
Re:Wow you're right! (Score:2, Informative)
At last, a subject I know about (Score:2, Informative)
All of the information that AB gets about sales comes from the distributors. A big part of my day is spent getting reports ready to go up to AB. The reports mention customer numbers, but these are *our* customers, not actual consumers. In some more advanced sales systems, retail pricing is indeed tracked. This type of information is used by AB and its distributors to do forcasting and the like. It is important to point out here that only retail stores who want to do so provide their own pricing and sales information to us. Most mom & pop operations don't bother. Many larger chains wich resources do provide this, as it also helps *them* to forcast. Once again though, we have no way of knowing what individuals are purchasing, or who those individuals are.
Also important to note is that much of our record keeping is mandated by law. The alcholic beverage commision in our state requires that we keep certain records on file for a given amount of time. This may be in addition to anything AB requires of us.
From the perspective of a network admin, BudNET is a pain in the rear. But I think that calling them Big Brother may be a little off the mark. Hope this helps to alleviate any major privacy concerns that you may have.
-haroldnjoe
Re:Quite frankly... (Score:1, Informative)
Here's The DEAL: (Score:1, Informative)
What happens when I buy a pack of cigarettes, or 15-pack of GUINNESS, then a week later my Health Insurance Company tells me that my premium is doubling because I engaged in the purchase (and presumed consumption) of items that may be hazardous to my health,(their investment), and the health of others?
It's not a matter of if . It's a matter of WHEN. :wq!