Stores Only Offer Sales Only If You Hand Over Personal Information

There are a lot of great sale prices at your local grocery or drug store. In fact, you can save a lot of money and do not have to go to a special discount retailer to find such deals. The only catch is that you leave behind your anonymity as the consumer if you want the sale price.

None of this may make sense just yet, but read on and you will find that you may have already fallen to at least one store's quest to gain access to your personal information by dangling the sale carrot in front of your face.

CVS drugstores are a good example of one chain that requires customers to have a special card if they want to obtain discounts on certain items in the store. Essentially, CVS has sale prices on items just as any store does. The difference is that on a select number of items, a shopper is required to have what is called an Extra Care card in order to obtain the discounted price. Anyone who doesn't have the card does not receive the sale price - no exceptions.

To obtain the Care Card, you have to fill out a brochure which includes your name, address, e-mail (if you want). Plus there is also a survey asking things such as how many children you have in the house (these questions are optional). Now, obviously this information will all be used to create a profile for you as a customer to CVS so the company has a better idea of who is shopping there. The problem is that this information is really none of the company's business.

Since when did it become necessary to let a store know everything about you when all you want is a bottle of water or some shampoo every now and then?

The Care Card is an example of how agressive some companies have become in gaining customer loyalty as well as understanding what their customers want so that the company may better turn a profit. The only advantage to the Care Card is that customers gain incentives such as coupons based on how much they shop at CVS stores. However, if you are not too keen on the idea of letting your neighborhood drugstore know everything about you, your best bet is to shop at Rite-Aid or Walgreens. Neither of those drug stores require their customers to have a card to obtain sale prices.