Earlier in the year I started using the Nielsen IQ scanning app for my weekly food shops. In a nutshell this app is a shopping panel which requires you to log your food shops for the things you buy by scanning the barcode, this then gives you some points which you can exchange for gift cards across loads of high-street retailers.
Nielsen uses this scanning data to inform manufacturers and retailers, who are then able to make many important decisions about the products they sell.
Best Bits:
There are loads of retailers to 'cash-in' your points, so there is something for everyone.
It can be a consistent way to get some vouchers to spend on things you want or need.
You can manipulate the requirements to get your weekly points so you don't need to do every shop.
Worst Bits:
Their website and rewards platform is clunky and not the smoothest to use
It's a bit of a faff doing this every week to get your points, as it adds on about 10 minutes to each shop.
There are quite a few reviews where people have lost their points for what seems like no obvious reason. This concerned me so I always cashed out as soon as I could rather than building them up for a more economical return of a higher gift card.
How it works:
You start with a screenshot or photograph of your receipt for that shop
Select where you have shopped, and how you did it e.g. online, click and collect or instore
Then you scan the barcodes of items, and then select quantity and any offers associated with it.
Submit the shop with the total amount spent, along with any loyalty card that was used.
Finally you get your points allocated for this shop.
How Points are allocated.
You get 90 Shopping points – for your household’s total scanned shopping data.
75 Holiday points – if you have told them when you unable to scan because you are on holiday /away by using the absence / holiday function.
75 No purchase points - if you have told them that nothing at all has been purchased in your household over the whole ‘scanning week’ using the no purchase function.
You can also earn bonus points and these are linked to the number of continuous weeks they receive data from you:
The 4 WEEKLY SHOPPING BONUS - If they receive your shopping information for 3 out of 4 weeks you will get 150 bonus points and if we receive 4 out of 4 weeks you will get an extra 200 bonus points.
The 12 WEEKLY SHOPPING BONUS - If we receive your shopping information for at least 9 of the 12 weeks you will get an extra 300 bonus points.
My Experience
I did this for 5 months at the start of the year for a £25 voucher, and then another 3 months to get the next £25. We used these vouchers for Clarks to get pretty much some free shoes, which is pretty cool.
I am slowly losing enthusiasm with it, but equally it is now just habit so should be fairly easy to continue with.
I do think it's worth it but equally I am sure there are more efficient uses of your time.