OT: neural networks and filePro

[Bill Vermillion]

On Wed, Nov 17 14:44  Fairlight said 'Who you talkin' to? You talkin'
to Fairlight?  I didn't do nuttin'.  I said: 

> Only Kenneth Brody would say something like:

> > I tend to get the opposite at A&P and ShopRite. Whatever I
> > buy, I tend to get coupons based on what I'm buying at that
> > time, but for the competitor's product. If I buy Gerber's
> > baby food, I will get a coupon for BeechNut. If I buy a box
> > of Kellog's cereal, I'll get a coupon for General Mills. And
> > so on.

> Things can be just as absurd without computers in the way.

> We get a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts pretty much every day. ("My
> name is Fairlight, and I'm a donutholic...") They know us very
> well over there (and actually worry if we don't show up!). We
> get "buy one, get one free" coupons from LIVE PEOPLE all the
> time.

> That may work for hard goods, but how often do you want to
> double your usual order of a pretty perishable foodstuff? I
> mean, cummon, they're really only good fresh. Give 'em even
> 12hrs and the icing tends to break down, making them a soggy
> mess that's nowhere near as good the next day.

> Pointless--and that's with no computers in the mix, but actual human
> beings.

> Much smarter was the manager that would give us a dozen on the
> house ever few weeks because we're such constant customers.

It may not be local managers but a policy.  Free coupons often look
good at first and the you read what you get and it's not worth it.

> I guess you'd have to guarantee that anyone doing any sort of
> programming is on par with the intelligent manager, rather than
> the idiots handing out near-useless coupons, before you'd get
> useful results.

You can't blame the programmers.  I talked with a programmer
who did a lot of financial institution work years ago.

He worked for two different banks.

On checking accounts one bank would sort the checks from the
smallest to the largest, so that if there was an overdraft only the
largest check would bounce.

The other bank sorted the amounts from largest to smallest and paid
them in that order.

That meant that bank could get far more bounced check charges
on one account.

The first bank was customer friendly, the second bank was
maximizing income.

Do not think for an instant that any retail store has your best
interest at heart.  They do want you to come back, but they want to
make as much money from you each time you are there.

You have to be an intelligent comparison shopper if you want to
maximize the amount of value you get for each dollar.

With your KK store - they have a captive customer.  So you don't
need to give away anything free to keep you.

OTOH my wife has a card from a local grocery chain and gets mail
at her address with coupons that will often be for $5.00 of
on a $40.00 purchase.  Me postal address is different so I
get offers at the same time that say $8.00 on a $40 purchase.

Since they have HER in the database she doesn't get as big a
discount, but I'm not in the database so they entice me with bigger
bargains.

Basic Marketing 101.

Bill
-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com