AOL Money & Finance

Wal-Mart's online survey: interesting stuff

More

On a weekly research visit to a local Wal-Mart store this past week, a small purchase produced a receipt with an interesting addition -- an opinion survey that could be performed online. Generally, these surveys are a waste from most retailers. A customer is required to fill in all kinds of personal information with the slight chance of winning a free stuffed toy while providing the retailer all kinds of marketing information that should be worth way more than a "chance" at winning something insignificant.

But Wal-Mart's was different: a chance to win a $1,000 gift card to one if its stores. Now, I'm quite sure Wal-Mart can be a little more generous that five of these cards for receiving probably millions in customer research value through survey responses, but the concept still resonates with the average Wal-Mart shopper most likely.

I found it interesting that the receipt also printed out these items to be used within the survey: Store number, ID (probably a unique customer number) and a password. The "ID" is what caught my attention. I'm left wondering if Wal-Mart is tracking purchases (down to the nth degree) with what survey results are being tallied. There's some highly valuable data to mine, my friends. After reading the company's privacy policy, I'm left no longer scratching my head.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA+30.6910,464.40
NASDAQ+6.872,176.05
S&P 500+4.981,110.63

Last updated: November 25, 2009: 06:07 PM

BloggingStocks Exclusives

Hot Stocks

DailyFinance Headlines

Latest from BloggingBuyouts

TheFlyOnTheWall.com Headlines

BioHealth Investor Headlines

WalletPop Headlines

My Portfolios

Track your stocks here!

Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.

BloggingStocks Partners

More from AOL Money & Finance

WalletPop Headlines