When Shaw's Supermarkets ended its 13-year-old loyalty card program, it bucked a well-established retail practice of collecting as much data as possible about customers and their buying habits.
With the move, the West Bridgewater chain — according to retail marketing experts — essentially abandoned the best way to connect with shoppers.
"I don't think you're going to see more retailers following suit," said Bill Bishop, an Illinois supermarket consultant. "It represents a bet that they can be successful without having a one-on-one connection with their shoppers, and I don't think that's true today."
Shaw's new parent company, AB Acquisitions, eliminated loyalty cards last month in its various supermarket chains, including its flagship Albertsons.
In lieu of the cards — which gave shoppers, in exchange for their participation in the program, access to discounts and special offers — Shaw's said it's lowering prices on thousands of items for all shoppers.
"Tracking individual shopping habits isn't as critical to our overall strategy development as knowing what our customers in our neighborhoods are shopping for at each store," spokesman Steve Sylven said. "We can track item movement by store to derive much of the data that we need to make purchasing and market decisions."
But Shaw's is an anomaly, according to Florida retail marketing consultant Mark Heckman.
"There's a world of opportunity now with just knowing what category customers are shopping in, because there's nutritional information and a lot of other things that retailers are starting to get content on to target (them)," he said.
Quincy's Stop & Shop operates one of the best loyalty card programs, Heckman said, aggressively using customer data to target its best shoppers and segment shoppers according to behavior.
Stop & Shop debuted its card in 1994, and customer benefits include weekly specials, items on sale for multiple weeks and other promotional programs, including gas rewards.
"We benefit as a business to better know what customers want and need from us," spokeswoman Suzi Robinson said. "There are various aspects of data we evaluate — from shopping frequency to what customers buy."
But Shaw's is following a few other grocery chains that focus on price in lieu of loyalty cards, including Hannaford Supermarkets.
"We've never had one," said Michael Norton, spokesman for the Maine-based chain. "We've always had what the industry refers to as 'everyday low prices.' There's a cost associated with (loyalty cards), which makes it harder to offer the pricing you want."
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Loyalty cards not going away
Dengan url
http://terdiamtersipu.blogspot.com/2013/07/loyalty-cards-not-going-away.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Loyalty cards not going away
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar