2 hours Ago By Varun Godinho
Coles, which is under scrutiny by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) as part of the ongoing Supermarkets Inquiry, has said that it sells customer data to its product suppliers. Coles chief customer officer, Amanda Mcvay, told the Inquiry committee last week that the supermarket sells shoppers’ “de-identified” data to the suppliers of the products it stocks. During questioning by the counsel assisting the inquiry, Naomi Sharp, Mcvay said Coles shared customers’ email addresses with its marketing platform Coles 360.
Mcvay added that Coles also shared “purchase behaviour” data that had been “aggregated and anonymised” with its internal “customer research and insight” platform Synergy, which it then sold to suppliers. “Those suppliers I spoke of ..
. [there is an] opportunity for them to purchase the access to the customer behaviour data within their categories, so that they can continue to learn and improve and to understand how their items are performing,” said Mcvay. It also reportedly collects consumer personal data at the checkout during an online shop and when someone logs in and browses the Coles website or app but does not purchase.
Consumer group Choice said earlier this year that data held by supermarkets such as Coles and Woolworths – which together account for more than two-thirds of national supermarket sales – was helping to push smaller players out of the market, by allowing them to better target consumers with advertising. “What we can see is unfairness that is happening so that customers are not necessarily getting the best deals, but also smaller players are not able to compete on price,” Choice consumer data advocate Kate Bower told ABC News. Coles and Woolworths operate the Flybuys and Everyday Rewards loyalty schemes respectively.
Those schemes collect data from customers, including “what, how, when and where you buy from us”, according to the Woolworths privacy policy. The data collected can be used in a number of ways, including personalised marketing and to build insights on customer behaviour. Coles Defends Itself Against Land Banking Claims Just as Woolworths executives were grilled a few days prior , Coles executives were also questioned during the inquiry regarding allegations of land banking.
Land banking refers to the practice of these supermarkets buying up land and sites and then sitting on them, instead of developing them into new stores, to block rivals from buying that site to build a competing store. Coles owns 42 undeveloped sites and has development applications in for 25 of the sites, the inquiry was told. Coles chief executive Leah Weckert said the company had a limited amount of capital and wanted to own land that would in the future make money.
Leah Weckert, Chief Executive Officer of Coles Group “As a company with a finite balance sheet, we are trying to use as best we can, I want to be investing in properties that are going to give us a return,” said Weckert. The company said that its ownership of a vacant lot 200m from one of its supermarkets in Perth is not an example of anti-competitive land banking. It defended its ownership of a vacant lot in the Perth suburb of Maylands.
The inquiry was told that Coles had owned the land since late 2008 and that Coles Group’s attempts to build a large liquor store were defeated in court, while a later attempt to sell the land fell through, reported News.com.au.
Coles property general manager Fiona Mackenzie said owning the vacant Maylands land had not hindered competition, as an IGA and Aldi operated nearby. Coles added that it planned to build a “dark store” warehouse for filling online orders on the land..
