Looking for insurance, food, clothes, and unit trusts?

Well, it appears that Woolworth's has entered the fray. First they offered unit trusts to clients, and now it appears that with the help of Auto and General they are offering car insurance, while you consider which piece of ostrich fillet you are going to eat.

And while the offering seems to have cherry-picked the best of all the direct insurers offerings, one wonders why the high-end retail store has been chosen by A&G to get into the short-term game?

Could it be that clients almost pre-select themselves? Or will the A&G call centre be tapping into the Woolworths client database to attempt to sell insurance.

On a protection of privacy level, one wonders whether clients have given the retailer permission to be spammed, and will clients mind being offered that special once in a lifetime deal?

On another level, as one reader put it, are "woolies" becoming an FSP, and if so are they earning commission for any sales that are generated? If they are not earning commission then the business model is flawed, from a "woolies" perspective.

While on yet another level does this simply eat into the cake that intermediaries thought was their domain not so long ago?

Editor's thoughts:
*One way to reduce the data mining of databases is for consumers to refuse to give permission to retailers to sell their details to other parties, even under the guise that they (the retailer) will from time to time send important marketing messages to their clients