J Sainsbury PLC (LSE:SBRY)’s boss Simon Roberts has said it is OK for the grocery chain to sell data on customers’ shopping habits to other companies and broadcasters.
In an interview with the Guardian, Roberts said the policy made adverts "more relevant" for shoppers.
Last week, the Times reported that Sainsbury’s and fellow grocery rival Tesco PLC (LSE:TSCO) made around £300 million through the sale of data collected from people shopping using loyalty cards.
Sainsbury’s works with Channel 4 to sell its Nectar card data to companies such as PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) and Heineken, which then tailor their adverts using the information.
Tesco and Sainsbury’s offer lower prices in shops using a loyalty card as a way to promote them, but this two-tier pricing is now facing a probe from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
Roberts said Sainbury's protects customers' data "incredibly carefully" and that any data sold is “anonymised”.
“What we want to do at its heart really is provide personalised messaging to customers so from what we hear from customers, they don’t want to be sent lots of marketing and media messages that aren’t relevant to them.
“By understanding customers better, it means we can target our loyalty programmes more effectively.”