The GSS frequent shopper systems collects information on shoppers for all stores. Essentially this system becomes a huge database that can be queried for analysis purposes, and used for mailings based on customer (shopper) statistics.

The information maintained in the database includes:

• Customer name/address and demographic/ethnic information.

• Customer order totals by department. The information available includes the store location, date and time of order, total sales for each department in the order, and the register/cashier that recorded the sale.

• Customer item purchases. The information available includes the store location items were purchased at, date and time the items were purchased, the UPC/EAN code of items purchased, quantity of each item purchased, sale price of items purchased, discount amount given to the customer for the items purchased, and the cashier/register the items were purchased at.

• Portions, or all of the information collected are easily imported to other data base managers, and word processors.