Service Merchandise was one of the forerunners in harvesting intrusive information for marketing purposes (phone numbers, home addresses, etc.). Started that in the 70’s I think. They always touted their strict privacy policy. Until the late 90’s when they were careening towards bankruptcy. Then they abruptly issued a policy change and sold everything but the kitchen sink to third parties.
I remember SM! Also BEST Products. One or the other had a big framed photo of a kindly old couple (the founders) by the checkout - apparently you were supposed to believe it was still a mom & pop store.
By now I hope that people are smart enough to provide false names, information, etc. to retailers.
When ‘customer loyalty’ schemes began in earnest (those barcode cards which retailers view as marketing gold), many users posted/shared their barcodes (which linked to bogus addresses) and encouraged others to copy same. Of course the retailers, who thought they had struck gold in terms of customer data but were simply too cheap and lazy to pay for proper research, reacted with horror and posted all sorts of dire warnings about sharing the barcodes, saying that one’s personal data could be compromised. But if the codes corresponded to bogus data where was the risk? And if the retailers were holding up their end of the privacy bargain where was the risk (again)?
Apparently service, follow-up and loyalty earned rather than demanded are 20th century concepts. When these retail Titanics go down will anyone hold the marketing wizards to account?
I used to love Service Merchandise. There was a similar showroom outfit, Labelle’s, that a had a store in Boulder. Both of those places had some really high-quality merchandise for very good prices. I still have stuff from both places, including a really nice Teak salad bowl set.