Supermarket loyalty cards and similar reward schemes are almost universal in their membership, with 9 in 10 (90%) Irish adults claiming to be a member of such loyalty programmes. Recent research on behalf of Retail Intelligence by Empathy Research, amongst a nationally representative sample of 1,005 adults aged 18+, sought to understand not only the level of usage of these programmes but also the value placed on them by consumers.
Unsurprisingly, the three big retailers have the highest level of sign up to their rewards programmes with Tesco (82%), ahead of both Dunnes Stores (72%) and SuperValu (61%) in terms of sign-up levels. There’s a significant gap evident between these three players and the next most prevalent programme, with 1 in 10 (10%) adults having signed up to the My Spar Rewards Club.
In terms of usage, all three of the main retailers record high levels of interaction with their members through their loyalty systems with just over 3 in 4 (76%) Real Rewards members using it every time they shop in SuperValu, compared to 8 in 10 (80%) Valuecard members using it each time they shop in Dunnes Stores and just over 8 in 10 (82%) using their Clubcard each time they shop in Tesco.
However, does widespread membership and usage actually bring loyalty? When looking at the impact of membership of each loyalty programme on choosing that respective store over another retailer, just over a third (35%) of Tesco Clubcard members would say their membership has a high impact – the highest recorded across the big three, higher than that of Dunnes Stores Valuecard members (27%) and SuperValu Real Rewards members (20%).
When asked to place a value on their membership of the programmes, just over 4 in 10 (42%) of Tesco Clubcard members would give a high value rating, compared to 23% of Dunnes Stores Valuecard members and 20% of SuperValu Real Rewards members, suggesting there is work to do for all three retailers in this space.
For more information and extra analysis relating to this piece of research, please contact Robbie Clarke at Empathy Research.
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