Question

Topic: Customer Behavior

Need Info On Loyalty Programs Running In Retail

Posted by Anonymous on 3/11/2008 at 10:41 AM ET 500 Points
Am working on a white paper on the various loyalty programs used in retail industry. I want to cover what all features are provided, how they are customized, the kind of analysis that can be done, the elements of loyalty; ways to reimburse on loyalty (rewards, cash back, points etc). On the all a comprehensive snapshot of features of successful loyalty programs.
PS: Pls dnt post any reply about the qualitative info/theory on Loyalty
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  • Posted by Levon on 3/11/2008 at 4:19 PM Member
    The most successful loyalty program I can think of off hand is Subway's loyalty card program. Does a fast food chain qualify as a retailer? Are they considered a food retailer?

    You could directly contact them and interview them...oh but that would be a qualitative approach. Maybe a white paper is what you seek?
  • Posted by Levon on 3/11/2008 at 4:22 PM Accepted
    There is a previously published white paper called "Have Loyalty Cards Peaked?" from Business Assyst which may be of help to you.
  • Posted by steven.alker on 3/12/2008 at 3:32 AM Member
    Yes, I too would like to see an answer to Randall’s (WMMA’s) question? The reason is that this is a huge and hot topic both in industry and in academia. There’s a market research paper on the subject – nearly all numbers, published by one of my clients, but its £4250!

    Could we have a Bit more background like who you work for and why you want the info please?

    Steve Alker
  • Posted on 3/12/2008 at 6:48 AM Member
    I would also be interested in reading you paper, do let us know when it is available.

    https://www.customerthink.com/article/loyalty_101_before_rolling_out_a_new_...
    https://www.customerthink.com/blog/five_challenges_loyalty_programmes
    https://www.customerthink.com/forum/b2b_loyalty_programs
    https://www.customerthink.com/news/colloquy_research_1_billion_loyalty_memb...
    https://customerthink.com/blog/loyalty_programs_dont_lead_to_loyalty
    https://www.customerthink.com/forum/alternative_to_cards
    https://arno.uvt.nl/show.cgi?fid=4357
    https://jam.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/3/229
    https://jam.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/95

    I hope that those will help,
    Luke Zukowski
  • Posted on 3/12/2008 at 7:51 AM Author
    Levon,
    I wonder if the retail chain majors will let me see the system details. If I get a whitepaper on this, then it just solves my purpose; i can use info/data for the logic I want to work for. But am not able to see it anyway. I will try to talk to Subway to see if they can allow me to see their system.

    I did check the whitepapers on Biz Assyst site, but again, they talk about Loyalty, why we need it etc. What I want is whats going on in market, the details like how they rewards the loyalty. It can be point based, coalition, white labeling, cash reward etc. And how the IT systems made for it work, how they track the behavior of buyer.

    As for the question on whitepaper; it shall be published on free to download basis. Its actually an effort to increase the domain knowledge, so whatever data I get; I will be correlating it to the knowledge I have of Loyalty programs in banking side.

    Luke,
    Am looking at practical implementation and not theory. I have already gone through theory and have defined fopr myself the Loyalty, kind of rewards etc.

    Hope am clear.
    And thanks a lot for pointers and links!
  • Posted by steven.alker on 3/12/2008 at 1:57 PM Accepted
    Dear Jas (?)

    I’ve not checked their white papers out, but the best known loyalty card in the UK operated for Tesco. Dunnhumby, who created the loyalty card for them, is now one of the worlds most advanced providers of the systems used to run the loyalty card. Their preferred supplier is SAS on the UK who publish white papers – just how much of the “guts” they give away publicly I’m not sure, but they and Dunnhumby are a very good starting point. SAS for the IT analytics and Dunnhumby for the marketing and process flow.

    For white paper resources see: https://www.sas.com/resources/

    For Dunnhumby Strategy see:

    https://www.dunnhumby.com/relevance/howitworks.htm

    With Dunnhumby, you might be better off phoning them to get more relevant information because since creating the POS loyalty card database and data mining system’s they have kept a lot of their technology close to their chest – hence the pricing on the Market Research I mentioned - it costs such a lot because the authors had to deduce the lot!

    Dunnhumby Loyalty Card as a search term in Google yields 1,400 entries, mostly of interest. As Dunnhumby aren’t likely to give away the keys to their kingdom for an article to be put into the public domain, I’m afraid that you’ll have to do the brain-work yourself! I can’t tell you much more because of client confidentiality.

    Best wishes


    Steve Alker
  • Posted by saul.dobney on 3/13/2008 at 5:54 AM Member
    Dunnhumby are now actually owned by Tesco as far as I know. You might also want to consider looking at Nectar (cross-retail loyalty card) and Air Miles - which is still going strong - both of which will have system integration descriptions and issues.

    https://www.gradientiq.com/Case/LMUK_Nectar_Case_Study.pdf
    https://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2144809/nectar-revamps-loyalty-c...
    This is a .pdf, though it doesn't open properly
    https://www.exony.com/download.cfm?type=document&document=38
    https://www.itbsoftware.com/pr/18990
  • Posted by steven.alker on 3/13/2008 at 6:30 AM Accepted
    Saul – that’s a good point, but Tesco own 84% of the ordinary shares in Dunnhumby and have two seats on the board. In the US, Dunnhumby USA is 50% owned by Kroger who were understandably worried about Tesco increasing their stake from sub 50% to 84% in 2006.

    The current arrangement allows Dunnhumby freedom to market its data-mining services to other grocers, though in reality, they will probably never have two major national accounts in any given geography.

    The Kroger site also has some white papers.

    Steve
  • Posted by Chris Blackman on 3/17/2008 at 7:30 AM Member
    The most sucessful loyalty card scheme in Australia AFAIK is FlyBuys, https://www.flybuys.com.au.

    All fully explained on the website.

    Hope that helps.

    ChrisB

  • Posted on 3/20/2008 at 11:26 AM Author
    Thanks everybody, what I have come to a conclusion is that I need to goto the various retail chains and understand their systems, provided they allow us to. It should take another working month or so.

    I have accepted all answers who gave some practical data/thought.

    Thanks
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