rashbre central: mystery shopping and a spark

Sunday 24 January 2016

mystery shopping and a spark


A couple of days ago I showed a selection of items recommended to me by Amazon.

I worked out that they were components from inside of a toilet cistern. I don't think I'll be buying anything from that selection somehow.

The next day I was provided another Amazon recommendation. This time it took the idea of toilets, plus movie, plus German language and suggested this:

My guess is that it knows that I (a) watch Amazon Movies (b) have been watching a German language series recently (Deutschland '83) (c) something to do with plumbing, although I'm less sure where this has come from.

Separately from all of that, Marks and Spencer recently started a new Sparks card and sent me a special offer. I'd got just over 6000 points (I reckon 6000 points represents about £600 of spending).

There were actually five offers of similar value and I could select any one I liked! I looked for the best one. It was 20% off all eggs, in store, valid for the next six days.

Well, you can imagine how I wanted to rush to get that offer! I could save maybe 50p-60p on a dozen eggs if I hurried along - and if I selected the offer on-line first.

This is a new level of complication with a loyalty card. Offers that can only be pre-selected on-line ahead of purchase.

Now as luck would have it, when I was leaving the site, a questionnaire popped up. Normally I ignore them all, but I couldn't resist on this occasion. I like to think that my answers are why I got the explanatory email from Sparks about their offers not always being right.

No comments: