Call me loyal
‘‘Your personal data is the big reward for these schemes. They get a wealth of consumer data.’’
Shoppers would be ‘‘daft’’ not to have a loyalty card for the supermarket at which they shop most often, one marketing expert says – but the cards are not all created equal.
The two significant loyalty programmes in New Zealand supermarkets are New World’s Clubcard and Countdown’s OneCard.
New World offers shoppers the chance to collect Airpoints Dollars or Fly Buys points, which can be used to purchase travel or merchandise, or converted to New World Dollars at set times of the year.
Countdown’s OneCard allows customers to choose between collecting Smartfuel points for petrol discounts, or OneCard points for Countdown vouchers. There is also a 6c per litre discount on fuel at BP or Caltex for OneCardholders.
Ben Goodale, chief executive at advertising agency Quantum Jump, said the cards were good value for customers.
‘‘A lot of the time it’s the way to access the best savings. A lot of the ticketed items in New World ad Countdown are member-only. As a shopper you would be daft not to have the card.’’
The supermarkets did not reveal what percentage of discounts rely on the shopper having a card. Foodstuffs said it was a ‘‘large volume’’. Countdown said that information was commercially sensitive.
Goodale said they helped supermarkets to appeal to customers as part of their overall value proposition.
The amounts customers have to