October 6, 2006

'Niche Envy: Marketing Discrimination in the Digital Age'

By NINA C. AYOUB

Are you a good shopper? Do you search for bargains and compare prices, brands, and stores before you buy? If so, you may be just the sort of customer some retailers want to ditch.

Dorothy Lane Markets, for example. In 2005 the Ohio-based chain received attention in the grocery-trade press, writes Joseph Turow, when, as Progressive Grocer said, it "essentially fired 1,500 of its customers." The strategy was two-pronged: Stop the weekly promotions that attracted the "cherry pickers," and