Smart Loyalty Programs to Shield Supermarkets from a Crisis

In an economic crisis, families’ purchasing power falls, so loyalty programs are more relevant in supermarkets’ management. These programs can influence customers to buy in the store, return, motivate the purchase, influence the decision-making of a product, and provide satisfaction. For this reason, management must invest in loyalty programs to positively impact sales.

All consumers have used shopping cards or have a frequent buyer card or smart shopping club.

These allow us to join a wholesale club, accumulate points to obtain discounts, prizes, or gifts. While supermarkets will enable them to get customer information, know where we buy, how often and what products we buy.

This information can be valuable if we know how to use it wisely for greater effectiveness and profitability. Loyalty programs are generally only used for promotions.

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But what are promotions? According to the Association of National Advertisers, promotional marketing includes tactics that incentivize and motivate short-term purchases, influence the testing of new products or the quantity to impact sales.

 There are two types of promotions, price, and sale. The first ones are discount coupons, prizes with monetary value “extra buck” or 2 x 1. While the supermarket sale promotions include an extra quantity of a product in larger packages, contests, games, gifts, raffles, points, or miles for redeeming for prizes.

According to Pulse HQ experts, each family has an average of 25 loyalty program subscriptions totaling $ 3 billion across the United States. Half of those memberships are inactive, so the challenge is to effectively loyalty programs and creative benefits. To do this, you have to understand that there are several types of loyalty:

  • Loyalty by behavior: it is a connection that is established by a lifestyle. For example, buyers visit a supermarket because it sells healthy products.
  • Functional loyalty: it is a connection established by the sensory experience of buying in a store, the quality of the products, the location, or the service.
  • Emotional loyalty: it is a connection that is established with the brand and generates a commitment. An example is going to a supermarket because it offers ethnic or nostalgic products.
  • Transactional loyalty: the connection is low because the purchase motivators are prices and promotions. If another supermarket offers better value, they leave.

But to achieve the effectiveness of loyalty programs, you have to know the type of customer, which we can identify through the capture and analysis of data in the store.

This information will allow management to define the incentives, awards, functional or emotional benefits to shield loyalty in the crisis’s face. Services such as belonging to an exclusive wine club, an invitation to special events, nutritional advice in supermarkets, discounts in gyms or health insurance, prizes related to well-being such as cooking classes, or entertainment such as “lotteries.”

Comercio Competitivo has allies in technology and the experience to design intelligent loyalty programs for supermarkets that will help you better manage the business. If you want to learn more about Comercio Competitivo, you can write to [email protected]