Loyalty programs may be the panacea for the troubles the retail sector is currently experiencing. As retailers make the transition from brick-and-mortar to the future of clicks-and-mortar, loyal customers are an essential part of a retailer’s emergence from the doldrums. Not only do loyalty program members spend more at their preferred retailer, but they are willing to share more data and, in turn, become even more profitable customers as offers are tailored to their needs and delivered to them at the right time.
Want to learn more about brands like Target, Amazon, and Walmart are building their loyalty programs? Read on…
Target’s REDCard Loyalty Program Members Get Target Restock for Free
Last week Target announced that it would be slashing the price for Target Restock, the “merchant’s next-day delivery service” for household essentials. As mentioned in the article on Retail Dive outlining the developments in Target’s home delivery strategy, this move is clearly a challenge to both Walmart and Amazon, particularly because “Target’s Restock fee drops arrive as Amazon is sending out emails to its Prime customers reminding them that their annual membership cost is rising $20 to $119. Its Pantry program, most analogous to Restock, is an add-on service that now costs $7.99 per box, up from $5.99.”
This decision sets up an interesting three-way battle between the established subscription service of Amazon Prime, the upstart Target, and innovator Walmart, which is looking to capture the non-membership segment of the online delivery market.
You can read the full story here.
Would you Pay for Enhanced Loyalty Program Benefits?
While Walmart sees growth potential in the non-membership market segment, more than a third of consumers surveyed in this year’s Loyalty Report 2018 from Bond Brand Loyalty said they would be willing to pay for enhanced benefits. With Amazon Prime’s annual fee rising to $119 and Restoration Hardware’s RH Members program costing $100 per annum, what sort of benefits are consumers expecting?
According to Retail Touch Points, consumers are expecting more than just points, and certainly much more than points that expire. In order to thrive in what is now a highly competitive environment, retailers must get creative to deliver value to subscribers. In return, loyalty program members have demonstrated that they are willing to both share data and a greater share of wallet for the right program incentives.
What kinds of incentives are loyalty program members most and least interested in? Find out here.
Can Machine Learning Enhance Loyalty Programs?
Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have seemingly become the solution to nearly every industry’s need to adapt to this period of disruption. And now, it’s found viable application the retail sector.
According to Tad Fordyce, SVP Loyalty at Epsilon ML has its greatest value in the retail sector by powering lifetime customer connections. As he shared in an article on Colloquy earlier this month, ML can make an impact in two particular areas: fraud and customer retention. Of course, to begin to put ML to work you need to begin with a loyalty program to serve as the foundational data for improvement.
To learn more about ML and loyalty programs read on here.
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