KEEPING TABS : DISCOUNT CARDS GIVE RETAILERS PRECISE, INSTANT DATA ON CUSTOMERS.

Byline: Bill Bergstrom Associated Press

If a new trend in shopper discount cards continues, wallets could get thinner while key chains get fatter.

Retailers from supermarkets like Malvern, Pa.-based Acme Markets Inc. to San Diego's Petco Animal Supplies Inc., have shrunk their frequent-shopper discount cards this year to tags that fit on a key chain.

Like the cards, the tags have bar codes that are scanned when purchases are rung up. Frequent shoppers get discounts and special promotions tailored to their tastes, while stores get an up-to-date computer record of who buys what, when and in what quantities.

Shoppers are lining their key rings with the bar code tags, not only showing their frequent buyer status at various stores but also their video-store and fitness-center memberships, National Retail Federation spokesman Scott Krugman said.

``It's very easy to get to, it's convenient to use, there is no coupon-cutting,'' Krugman said.

Acme introduced the key-chain tags earlier this year, spokesman Walt Rubel said.

``They are very popular,'' Rubel said, though he said the company would not reveal the number of tags in use. ``The feedback from the stores is that the customers like them. My wife thinks they are the best thing we've ever done.''

Officials of the Pittsburgh-based Giant Eagle supermarket chain have test-marketed the key-chain tags in Ohio and in the Erie and Pittsburgh areas in Pennsylvania.

Joseph Faccenda, the chain's senior vice president, said customers like the tags and more than 1 million have been distributed to Giant Eagle's most frequent shoppers.

The tags are equally popular with customers of smaller retailers, said Bob Tate, owner of the 23,000-square-foot Tate's grocery near Drake University in Des Moines.

For example, Tate said he already knew fraternity houses in the area were good customers, but the popularity of his ``Preferred Perks'' program, using the key-chain tags, helps him track other key shoppers.

The tags are just the latest advance in the use of scanning technology that allows a computer to read bars and numbers and add up a bill, while tracking inventory and the buying habits of customers to provide instant marketing information, he noted.

``About 30 percent of my customer base represents about 70 percent of my sales. Without a loyalty marketing program you wouldn't really know who these people were,'' Tate said. ``What we are doing is taking the technology of scanning and instead of tracking product movement we are tracking customer movement.''

Tate said he has built up an active database of 12,000 to 13,000 customers carrying the Preferred Perks tags.

At the other end of the scale, the 480-store Petco Animal Supplies Inc. chain has more than 5 million participants in its Petco Animal Lovers Save program, spokesman Don Cowan said.

The system enables Petco to track inventory and target promotions. For example, the company would not waste money sending cat food promotions to customers who primarily buy dog food week in and week out.

Customers of the pet food and supply stores like the tags that go on their key chains because ``they usually have that, where they may not carry all the cards they have,'' Cowan said.

``I have one from Petco, two from the grocery store and one from the video store,'' Cowan said. ``It beats carrying the cards. Most people have their keys with them.''

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