Fighting back against supermarkets

Supermarket's combine various methods to work out pricing to achieve the most profits possible, mainly by using demographics (that's another post entirely), in conjunction with the information it can collect about YOU and your shopping habits and buying history.

The old addage is applicable in supermarkets, more than ever:

Knowledge is POWER!

The more information that you hand over to supermarkets, the more they will use this information to take money from your pocket.
There is a good reason why Tesco and Sainsburys use a company called Dunnhumby, that monitors shopping habits via loyalty cards, (Check out their website here) it's that successful, Tesco bought into the company and are now it's majority shareholder!
Not only do the supermarkets gather information about you, whilst pledging "Not to sell this information to other companies" this doesn't stop them selling on "analysis of this data" - you see, there's always a way around it.

There is no way of stopping supermarkets gathering information about it's customers?
By doing things differently, over a period of time you can mess up the information that it thinks it has about your shopping habits - here are some that I use:

• NEVER use a loyalty card - Asking for trouble, they are used to build up a profile of you and your habits. When combined with information that you have to submit when you sign up for the card, ie, email address, home address, children, personal circumstances, etc. Supermarkets already know about when and how much you spend, before you have even reached home with your shopping.
  It is not just supermarket loyalty cards either, boots, barclaycard, etc, many companies use your information and sell their "analysis" on to other companies.
• ALWAYS pay in cash - Even if I have to use the supermarket's cash machines, where ever possible I always pay in cash. Paying by card is almost identical to using a loyalty card. The same principles apply, only with the added bonus for the supermarket of seeing how you pay for goods, ie, credit or debit card, etc.
• Shop on different days, at different times - Supermarkets store your shopping information over months/years. Shopping at the same time on the same day of the week, by analysing your purchases then can quite accurately assign your visit to their store, to the information they already have about you.
  A simple change of day, say a Thursday night instead of regular Friday afternoon can mess their information up.

Sad as I am, I have even on occasion withdrawn some cash from Tescos cash machines then driven off to Asda (and vica versa)  and spent the money there (in cash of course) just to mess up their snooping.
Ideally, all this wouldn't be neccessary, as supermarket shopping for my weekly shops, will be done away from the supermarket, that is my aim.

Articles on this topic:
From 2003 but still relevant today (Guardian)
More articles will be added as I come across them.