AC Nielsen/Homescan Consumer Panel - Anyone done this before?

[Obi-Wan Pinobi]

We received a letter in the mail from ACNielsen and I got all excited thinking we were going to be a "Nielsen Family" and record our tv viewing. But the invitation was for their Homescan Consumer Panel where they send you a UPC scanner and modem and you scan the barcode on any purchases you make during the time you are on the panel so that they can track what you purchase and what brands you favor.

Sounds interesting. Gotta love any new electronic equipment in the house . Anyone ever done this before?

I can see our purchases now...

cockatiel food
dog cookies
cockatiel food
dog toy
cockatiel food
dog bones

 

[Tigger&Belle]

I've never heard of that. We were a Neilsen Family before, which was fun, but a lot of work. Guess we watch too much tv... The kids liked to track the viewing.

The scanner thing sounds interesting.

When I saw your list I thought the first item was "cocktail food"--you know, to go with all the cocktails.

 

[buzzlady]

I do this for another company. It can become a pain because they want to you scan every single item that you buy. I do try to do as much as I can. But there is no way that I could ever scan every single item. The grocery scanning is easy - just put in the store and scan the products. Some of the other stores like Wal-mart and Sam's you have to put in each price and the # of each item that you purchased and if it was on sale or on display.

The company that I scan for also has a RX scan. You scan all RX if you have any, if not you just scan that you don't that week. I earn points for each week that I scan, whether I scan 1 item or every single item that I purchase.

 

[Pin Wizard]

I did that for a while and finally sent the gadget back to them because it was a pain. Every price had to be entered manually. They wanted you to choose something else if it was a sale price. And then at times when I tried to send the info to their website, I couldn't get it to work. Very annoying. Finally told them forget it and sent it back. I never did get anything out of the deal.

 

[Cool-Beans]

We got a postcard once saying they were going to call us to be a Nielson family, but they never did!!!

It might be a big pain in the buttinski scanning everything you ever buy. But still pretty cool!

 

[LtlTee]

I did this for about 1 1/2 years or so. They want everything you buy scanned -- not just grocery shopping. Once a week via the telephone you transmit all purchases for the week, and you get a certain number of points per transmission. The points could then be used to "buy" merchandise from a catalog. They also had quite a few different drawings where there was a chance to win big prizes. It was kinda fun, but after a while it got rather time consuming and I sent the scanner back.

 

[of the seas]

we are a nielsen family right now!!! I didn't know they track people's purchases also! You must be able to do one or the other. Entering each price seems time consuming. What if you buy something real personal! At least with the nielsen tv all we have to do is push a few buttons!