Homescan Review

I decided to sign up to be a member of Homescan and was accepted about a year and a half ago. When I originally signed up, I was put on a waiting list. Apparently, they need a particular mix of people of various backgrounds and family sizes.

ADVANTAGES: 

Homescan is a program in which Nielson can track spending trends. Members scan any products they purchase with a hand-held scanner and transmit the data over the computer. In exchange for this effort, members receive points that can be used to purchase gifts in an online catalogue. Those who scan and transmit on a regular basis are also entered into sweepstakes to earn cash. After certain anniversaries (6 months, 1 year, etc.), additional points are awarded. One other advantage of the program is that your shopping habits become more recognized by retailers. For example, we buy a lot of gluten free and soy products. I hope that mainstream retailers in turn will begin to stock more of the products that we currently buy at specialty grocers like Whole Foods.

DISADVANTAGES: 

With a family of five, we have to purchase quite a bit of items, particularly groceries and gasonline, so the scanning is a bit time-consuming. Our scanner lists stores alphabetcally. If we shop at a store often, those stores come up first, but if we shop less often at a particular store or have never shopped at a store, I have to scroll through the entire list of stores. It would be nice to go directly to a particular letter rather than scrolling through so many, especially when I have three children who all seem to need something after a shopping trip. I have had some problems lately with transmitting. It seems that every time we do a Microsoft update, the scanner will not transmit properly. If I don't happen to notice that error message right after I transmit, then I usually do not see the message until the week's deadline for transmitting has already passed. Then I miss out of those points.

The points are another matter. After a year of faithfully scanning each purchase and transmitting each week (or at least attempting to transmit), we only have about 30,000 points. The points range from about 8,000 to over 100,000. It looks to me like a gift worth 10,000 points is worth about $10, and a gift worth 50,000 points is worth about $50. For us, one year of scanning seems to be worth about $30. We did cash in points about a year ago for a popcorn popper. It was broken when it arrived, but we sent it back and got a replacement that has worked fine.

I've tried to contact customer support via the internet several times and have never gotten a response. If I call them on the 800 number, I do get a response, and the people do seem to be pretty friendly and helpful.

My Viewpoint:

Homescan does provide a way to show retailers shopping trends, which I am hoping they will recognize and begin to stock specialty items we purchase. For those who purchase a lot of gadgets, electronics, and items that are not staples, this program may provide more surveys for additional points. For those who stick to basic necessities, it requires a lot of time and work for very few points. I would recommend this program to those who would like to have retailers to recognize their spending habits and for those who might qualify for the extra surveys.